…and other matters of life and death

Documentation of the series of public briefings and policy debates hosted by the Geneva Global Health Hub (G2H2), 15-19 January 2024, ahead of WHO EB 154

In 2008, the Report of the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health stated that “social justice is a matter of life and death. Inequities in health, avoidable health inequalities, arise because of the circumstances in which people grow, live, work, and age, and the systems put in place to deal with illness. The conditions in which people live and die are, in turn, shaped by political, social, and economic forces. Social and economic policies have a determining impact on whether a child can grow and develop to its full potential and live a flourishing life, or whether its life will be blighted. Increasingly the nature of the health problems rich and poor countries have to solve are converging.”

In times of multiple and interconnected crises, fundamental transformation is needed for a healthy and safe future for all, not just the privileged few. With this series of public briefings and policy debates, G2H2 provided again a space to discuss and advance issues of social justice, political and economic justice, health justice, environmental and climate justice …as matters of life and death indeed.

Programme

Monday 15 January 2024, 15.00-16.30 CET
Putting climate and health at the centre of the next WHO strategy:
What does this mean? What does it need for WHO to walk the talk?
Session organized by Medicus Mundi International Network, Global Climate and Health Alliance and partners
Language: English

Tuesday, 16 January 2024, 15.00-16.30 CET
Reclaiming One Health!
Recuperar el concepto de una sola salud
Récupérer le concept d’une seule santé
Session organized by Society for International Development SID
Languages: English, French, Spanish

Wednesday, 17 January 2024, 13.00-14.30 CET
Accountability towards accelerated access to better medicines for children
Session organized by Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation and GAP-f
Language: English 

Thursday, 18 January 2024, 13.00-14.30 CET
Beyond a World Health Assembly resolution: how to implement and institutionalize social participation and accountability?
Session organized by Save the Children, Medicus Mundi International Network, CSEM and partners
Language: English

Friday, 19 January 2024, 13.30-15.00 CET
Reflecting on the possibilities and challenges of the Global Health and Peace Initiative
Session organized by People’s Health Movement
Languages: English, French, Spanish

Documentation

Monday 15 January 2024, 15.00-16.30 hrs CET 
Putting climate and health at the centre of the next WHO strategy: What does this mean? What does it need for WHO to walk the talk?

Over the last few months, and at the COP28 UN Climate Conference, the interrelatedness of climate and health justice has, finally, received the attention it deserves, and some political traction at the highest political level. In 2024, climate change and health will be prominently on the agenda of the WHO governing bodies, with a resolution proposed by the WHO member states Core Group Climate Change and Health, and with the WHO secretariat’s proposal to put the “response to climate change, the greatest health threat of the 21st century” at the centre of its draft strategy (GPW14) for the next years, as one of six strategic objectives. 

On this background, the policy briefing and debate explored, in a conversation between civil society organizations, WHO members states and the WHO Secretariat, how this strategic focus of the World Health Organization on climate change and health, if approved by the Governing Bodies, will be transformed into political leadership for the promotion of climate and health justice within and beyond the health sector, and what support by member states, what capacities and financial means are needed for WHO to walk the talk.

Speakers
  • Ailan Li, WHO Assistant Director-General UHC / Healthier Populations
  • Maria Neira, Director WHO Department of Public Health and Environment
  • Thomas Schwarz, Medicus Mundi International Network
  • Rosie Tasker, Global Climate and Health Alliance
Documentation and references
More about this session

Tuesday, 16 January 2024, 15.00-16.30 CET
Reclaiming One Health
Recuperar el concepto de una sola salud
Récupérer le concept d’une seule santé

Everyone talks about One Health today, but the relevance newly assigned to the topic increasingly manifests itself in its slippery counterintuitive connotations. In real life, One Health defines the profound interconnections that exist across the fields of human, veterinary, and environmental health, bringing the need for new categories in the way we tackle food systems, biodiversity loss, zoonoses, microbiome diversity, and antimicrobial resistance, and addressing the root causes for systemic ill-health and potential new pandemics, instead of limiting the scope to merely treating the symptoms, in the case of new outbreaks. In other words, One Health entails a biocentric approach to health. In the mainstream narrative instead, including at the WHO negotiations for a new binding instrument for pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response, One Health remains hijacked by a purely anthropocentric approach. 

In this session, the Society for International Development SID launched the latest publication of its flagship’s Journal “Development” and initiated a prolific dialogue on the concept of One Health that takes into consideration selected regional experiences, ancestral knowledge and alternative points of view.

Speakers
  • Daniele Mandrioli, Director of the Global Glyphosate Study at Ramazzini Institute
  • Genevieve Savigny, Confédération Paysanne and La Via Campesina
  • Igor da Silva Barbosa, Ministry of External Relations at the Government of Brasil (tbc)
  • Marjan Leneman, Director at Diversity Focus
  • Nina Jamal, Head of Pandemics and Campaign Strategies at Four Paws
  • Nithin Ramakrishnan,  Third World Network

The session was moderated by Nicoletta Dentico, Head of the Global Health Programme, Society for International Development (SID).

Session documentation
More about this session

Wednesday, 17 January 2024, 13.00-14.30 CET
Accountability towards accelerated access to better medicines for children

Despite sustained efforts by Member States, the World Health Organization Secretariat, and other actors, many countries are still facing multiple challenges in ensuring availability, affordability, and rational use of quality-assured medicines for children. It is of critical importance to continue advocating for innovations and access to quality, safe, efficacious, and affordable medicines for children to achieve better health for all. The 154th session of the WHO Executive Board includes an agenda item on acceleration towards the Sustainable Development Goal targets for maternal health and child mortality.  

The objectives of the session were to support coordinated ongoing advocacy efforts to strengthen high-level political attention and accountability on innovation and access to paediatric medicines, in light of existing resolutions and commitments related to access to medicines, and to discuss opportunities to advocate together in light of the WHO EB154 agenda item on acceleration towards the Sustainable Development Goal targets for maternal health and child mortality. The discussion was also intended to inform an advocacy brief on access to better medicines for children developed by the Global Accelerator for Paediatric Formulations, a WHO Network created to respond to the paediatric medicines gap.

Agenda/speakers
  • David Ruiz Villafranca, EGPAF
    Framing the problem: Accountability towards access to medicines for children. 
  • Farihah Malik, GAP-f
    Introduction to GAP-f as a mechanism to respond to WHA Res 69.20 on access to medicines for children. 
  • Sébastien Morin, MPP
    Access to medicines for children: challenges and possible solutions
  • Michelle Childs, DNDi
    Upcoming opportunities around maternal and child mortality with a possible WHA Resolution
Session documentation
More about the session

Thursday, 18 January 2024, 13.00-14.30 CET
Beyond a World Health Assembly resolution: how to implement and institutionalize social participation and accountability?

Since the launch of the WHO Handbook on Social Participation for UHC in 2021, there has been growing political leadership among WHO Member States on social participation, leading to the proposal of a resolution to be adopted by the 77th World Health Assembly in May 2024. The agenda of social participation – and social accountability – is strongly supported by a range of civil society actors, including those who engaged in dialogues with the WHO Director General in 2020 and continue to participate in consultations with the Member State co-chairs of the proposed resolution, Slovenia and Thailand. 

In this session, the organizers, after introducing the draft WHA resolution scheduled for consideration at EB154, already looked at the next steps and explored avenues and best practices for institutionalizing and sustaining social participation at national level. We heard from the pen holders of the WHA resolution about their ambitions and also from Member States and civil society on realities and expectations regarding the current implementation of social participation and accountability.

Programme
  • Welcome 
    Thomas Schwarz, MMI Network
  • From national commitments to a WHA resolution
    Vesna Kerstin Petrič, Head, Office for Collaboration with WHO, Ministry of Health, Slovenia
    Nanoot Mathurapote, Head Global Collaboration Unit, National Health Commission Office, Thailand
    talking with Margot Nauleau, Save the Children
  • Leaving no one behind – experience from Argentina on social participation
    Paloma Loreti Gambaccini, Fundacion Huesped, SPHERE consortium
  • Youth-led social accountability – experience from Kenya
    Margaret Wanja, Youth for Sustainable Development (YSD – Kenya)
  • Building inclusive and equitable health systems though social participation
    Suraya Dalil and Kira Koch, WHO Secretariat
  • Discussion: How can a WHA resolution contribute to advancing social participation and accountability
    moderated by Margot Nauleau, Save the Children
Documentation and references
More about this session

Friday, 19 January 2024; 13.30-15.00 CET
Reflecting on the possibilities and challenges of the Global Health and Peace Initiative 

In 2019 the Global Health and Peace Initiative (GHPI) was launched by Oman and Switzerland. The initiative aimed to use health as an entry point for building peace, and stemmed from an acknowledgement that WHO does much of its work in conflict affected settings. The roadmap faces a number of challenges. One comes from Member States concerned about WHO potentially exceeding its mandate. The most recent roadmap for the GHPI was tabled at WHA76, where India, Brazil and South Africa raised concerns about the initiative, cautioning that the roadmap “borders on the most delicate subject: peace and security, peace, nation and state sovereignty”. Another challenge stems from the deep tensions emerging among member states due to ongoing conflicts (e.g. in Ukraine, the Horn of Africa, and Gaza and the West Bank) and some Member States’ objections to WHO taking on a political role in conflict affected settings. In this context, what are the prospects of developing a GHPI roadmap that Member States can agree on? Would such a roadmap err on the side of pragmatism, or would it also seek to address structural drivers of war, conflict and occupation? Finally, to what extent is the roadmap drawing on the expertise of non-state actors and other UN agencies, who play a crucial role in delivering health services in conflict settings – and have increasingly been exposed to physical violence themselves? 

This policy debate aimed to bring attention to progress that has been made in developing a roadmap for the GHPI; to acknowledge the complex geopolitical context in which the GHPI is being developed; to draw on experts’ experiences to identify what successes the GHPI might deliver; and to reflect critically on the challenges and limitations of  the GHPI’s aim to use “health as an entry point to build peace”.  

Speakers
  • Abdullah Al Harthy
    Advisor to the Minister of Health (Oman) and Oman focal point for the Global Health & Peace Initiative
  • Samer Jabbour
    Researcher at the Syrian Center for Policy Research, former Director of the Department of NCDs and Mental Health at WHO EMRO
  • Arief Rachman
    SpRad, Chairman, Medical Emergency Rescue Committee (Mer-C)
  • Unni Karunakara
    Senior Fellow Yale Law School
    previously International President of MSF
  • Lauren Paremoer
    People’s Health Movement, Global Health Governance Programme (moderator)
Documentation and key references
More about this session

In the week before the 154th Session of the WHO Executive Board, a series of public briefings and policy debates organized by the Geneva Global Health Hub (G2H2) and its members provided spaces for sharing, assessing and debating health policy and governance challenges within and beyond the items covered by the formal agenda of WHO EB, bridging from health policies to people’s realities, addressing determinants of health and promoting democratic governance.

For general enquiries, please get in touch with the G2H2 secretariat.

Thank you!

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