Activities
2001 in more detail -
Policy
work
Part of HDE’s mandate
is to sensitize other development partners to the fact that
health is a crucial part of development, and that non-health
agencies and institutions have a role to play in creating and
contributing to good health practices. HDE therefore has a broad
advocacy role within WHO and across a wide spectrum of
national and international development agencies.
In May 1999, an
international group of development Ministers from OECD countries
and other senior officials attended a meeting organized by WHO
and hosted by the UK’s Department for International
Development (DfID), called World Health Opportunity: Developing
Health, Reducing Poverty. The meeting called attention to the
enormous potential that health holds for contributing to
development and poverty reduction. WHO made a commitment to
develop stronger partnerships with development agencies to
translate this potential into results.
Since September 1999,
HDE has met with key development agencies to discuss and compare
various approaches to health and poverty reduction. This has
included multi-laterals (EU, World Bank), and bi-laterals (e.g.
DfID, SIDA, NORAD, DANIDA). It has become clear that there is a
lack of consensus about the best ways for health to contribute
to poverty reduction, and little agreement on key components of
an effective pro-poor health policy at the country level.
Thus, WHO through HDE is
pursuing a series of meetings to seek greater consensus among
development and technical agencies, developing country
representatives, and civil society on priorities for pro-poor
health action and for research, testing, and evaluation. The
first meeting, in June 2000, Partnership in Health and Poverty:
Towards a Common Agenda, mapped out an agenda with short- and
long-term strategies for agreeing on evidence-based pro-poor
health policies that increase health’s role as a driving force
in economic and social development. A report from the meeting
has been published.
Civil
Society
The capacity of HDE to
bring health to the centre of the development agenda will depend
in part on its ability to forge partnerships with a wide range
of civil society actors, including development partners and
academic institutions actively involved in efforts to reach the
poor. To this end, the department is supporting the development of the
International Poverty and Health Network, developing a series of
"best practices on health and poverty reduction",
contributing to the Peoples' Health Assembly and supporting
regional networking activities.
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