The Global Forum for Health Research welcomes this declaration which underlines the need to push forward even in times of economic and financial hardship.

The declaration ends (paragraph 42)

"We reaffirm the need to develop, make use of and improve national health information systems and research capacity with, as appropriate, the support of international cooperation, in order to measure the health of national populations, with disaggregated data, so that health inequities can be detected and the impact of policies on health equity measured" (and paragraph 43)

"We are committed to promoting research and development, knowledge-sharing and provision and use of information and communications technology for health, including affordable access by all countries, especially developing countries.

Research is not a luxury. See the intervention to WHO's Executive Board, January 2009