Global Health Watch Mobilising Civil Society around an Alternative World Health Report GHW Update 7 - February 2005 Welcome to our February edition!!! Please pass on this newsletter to anybody that might be interested in the GHW TO RECEIVE PERIODICAL UPDATES E-MAIL GHWatch-newsletter-subscribe@yahoogroups.com TURNING TO ADVOCACY ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- We are nearing the end of the first stage of our Global Health Watch journey - the publication will go to press at the beginning of March. As it does, we want to alert you to the next stage of our work - ADVOCACY. In many respects this is the key component of the Watch. This is how the publication will become noticed; this is also how we can expand and glue together the individuals and movements who have contributed with those who did not. The last chapter will point at the areas that need to be looked at and prioritise some recommendations. We will spend more time on honing our key messages in the accompanying summary document that will be produced by mid-May. The main book will link to this summary document. We want to encourage a broad participation in the production of the summary document - in the end we want this document to contain some strong statements that as many health and health-related actors can campaign around as possible; as well as containing key advocacy messages we want to project to the world at the time of PHA 2 A draft will be available by the end of March, and then we will give a month for consultation about the key messages with a wide range of interested actors. Yours sincerely, GHW Secretariat HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE GHW REPORT 2005 - THE RIGHT TO FOOD ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Under-nutrition seems to be inexplicable in a world where the food market ascends to the 11% of the global trade and food prices have decline over the last years. Nevertheless it is one of the most important causes of illness and death globally as well as a key factor in poverty reproduction. This chapter looks at the underlying causes of under and over nourishment both in developing and developed countries as directly related to the globalisation and liberalisation processes that have been taken place in the last decades. By implementing global marketing strategies and liberal programmes such as NAFTA, small local producers have been displaced from the market leaving the food system under the control of few global corporations based in developed countries. Thus generating poverty and inequalities as well as a decline in agricultural and rural investment in developing countries, not mentioning the threat posed by the growing market of genetically modified seeds. Another dimension of the problem closely intertwined with the latter, is the globalisation of diets around the globe. This process has been encouraged to a great extend by international organisms such as the World Bank (which offers loans in order to develop certain type of food industry) as well as the entry of large food multinationals and retailers. The consequences are manifold, there is a cultural impact in terms of the progressive shift from diverse traditional local food towards a westernised homogeneous diet and on the other hand problems of over-nutrition and obesity are becoming new public health burdens. These are difficult to overcome not only because of the complexity of the problem itself but because of the pressure exerted from big food companies. Towards the end of the chapter various strategies to tackle the problem are proposed, such as the development of international standards and national legislation in order to protect and promote national food security. Finally there is a call civil society to take a more active role in restoring food to the status of a human and cultural right. GHW AT THE WORLD SOCIAL FORUM ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The fifth edition of the World Social Forum was held between 26 and 31 last month. This was the biggest ever edition of the Forum and congregated more than 150,000 participants in the Brazilian City of Porto Alegre. The enormous gathering of groups and movements from all corners of the world was an inspiring opportunity to debate, share experiences and network. One of the GHW Secretariat members, Claudia Lema, attended the WSF last week. She facilitated a workshop organised by IFRHHO (International Federation of Health and Human Rights Organisations) and chaired by the UN Special Rapporteur for the Right to Health discussing strategies to use Millennium Development Goals as tools for the achievement of the right to health. She also had meetings to discuss the Global Health Watch initiative with the representatives from ALAMES (Latin American Association of Social Medicine), Action Aid and the European Network for the Right to Health, as well as the members of the various chapters of the Peoples Health Movement. Please pass on this newsletter to anybody that might be interested in the GHW TO RECEIVE PERIODICAL UPDATES E-MAIL GHWatch-newsletter-subscribe@yahoogroups.com If you do not wish to continue receiving this newsletter, please e-mail ghw@medact.org with Unsubscribe in the subject box.