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Forum 8 Press Releases
17 November 2004 Poverty, Equity and Health Research Disabled People and Mainstream Development Poverty, Equity and Health Research
18 November 2004
19 November 2004
20 November 2004
Background information
Mexico City, November 2004Bringing together close to 700 health researchers, policy-makers, and funders and users of health research from 100 countries, the Global Forum for Health Research will meet here for five days from 16 to 20 November (Tuesday-Saturday) to confront the challenges to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). These goals, set in the first year of the 21st century by the United Nations, represent the most important collective commitment ever made by developing and developed country governments, donors and international development agencies to tackle the poverty, ill health and deprivation suffered by a large proportion of the worlds population, says Professor Stephen Matlin, the Global Forums Executive Director. Four of the eight
Millennium Goals concern health: malnutrition, child
mortality, maternal health and infectious diseases, and the
others are all health-related. They will be at the heart of
the discussions at Forum 8, the Forum 8 is being held
in collaboration with the Ministry of Health of The inviting host, Julio Frenk, the Mexican Minister of Health, will welcome participants to the Opening Session on 16 November. Remarks by WHO Director-General J.W. Lee, PAHO Head Mirta Roses and Pramilla Senanayake, Chair of the Global Forums Foundation Council, will precede the opening speech by President Vicente Fox. Health research has been immensely beneficial for human well-being, as witnessed by the contributions it has made to extending lifespan and the quality of life for people in many countries in the last century, but there is another side to the picture, warns Richard G.A. Feachem, Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria and former Chair of the Global Forum's Foundation Council. People in many of the lower income countries and, indeed, poor, disadvantaged and marginalized people everywhere in the world have benefited less from the products of health research and continue to suffer high, and often growing, levels of ill health and premature death. Many of the reasons for this can be traced to failures to use knowledge or to deliver products that are already available. In turn, these can be linked to issues such as inadequate finances, lack of political will, weak infrastructures and missing human resources. Professor Matlin
emphasizes that there is a growing burden of noncommunicable
diseases, equal to or often greater than the burden of
communicable diseases in many developing countries, for
example, Professor Matlin says that the MDGs represent the best hope for galvanizing global efforts in the decade ahead. This is especially true if the MDGs are viewed not just as a set of specific numerical targets but as the embodiment of a spirit of international commitment to fundamental principles of equity in development. We view the MDGs not as individual targets to be ticked off when/if they are met, but as proxies for an overall concept of what development must mean if it is to improve the lives of poor people. Forum 8 plenary sessions cover broad themes such as poverty and equity, maternal and child health, research flows and priority-setting, networks and partnerships.
Among the Global Forums new publications out in time for Forum 8 are The Global Forum Update on Research for Health 2005 a collection of articles by over 30 health ministers, international agency representatives and well known health research experts; a new title in the series by Professor Lesley Doyal on Gender and Health Sector Reform; and the important new assessment Monitoring Financial Flows for Health Research. As this publication makes clear, the world is spending more on health research than ever (US$105.9bn in 2001) but there is still a gross under-investment in health research to meet the needs of low- and middle-income countries the so-called 10/90 gap. A new e-magazine RealHealthNews is also launched at Forum 8, aimed at improving understanding of the work of the international health research community, set within the context of the global health scene, both by policy-makers and the public in general. The plenaries will break up into about 40 panels, over the course of the Forum, that will deal with every aspect of health research including sexual and reproductive health, violence against women, mental health, infectious diseases, chronic diseases, ethics, poverty, community-based methodologies, access to health information, child health and nutrition, and many others. On the closing day of the meetings (Saturday 20 November) the Ministerial Summit will issue a Mexico Agenda and the Global Forum for Health Research a Statement that incorporates the views expressed and the conclusions reached in Mexico City. The vicious circle of poverty and ill health at which the MDGs are targeted will not be broken without intensified effort to close the 10/90 gap in health research, with a strong focus of the research being directed to reducing poverty and inequality, the draft Statement declares. Contacts: Susan
Jupp, Head, Communication and Information, Global Forum for
Health Research T
41 22 791 3450 or susan.jupp@globalforumhealth.org
or
Paul Ress, Media consultant T
41 22 734 9813 or paulress@freesurf.ch
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