PHM Africa Learning Space

From Amit Sengupta wrote: Global Health Watch 3 is now available online on the GHW site (www.ghwatch.org). The direct link is: www.ghwatch.org/sites/www.ghwatch.org/files/global%20health%20watch%203.pdf. Do spread the word around.

January blog by Claudio Schuftan I have to admit my columns are not always calming. SCALING UP NUTRITION (SUN) LET US HOPE THAT THE SUN INITIATIVE CAN REALLY PUT NUTRITION AT THE CENTRE OF DEVELOPMENT I here now ask questions and make comments about the rather big SUN (Scaling Up Nutrition) worldwide initiative endorsed by the World Bank and the pertinent UN agencies plus some international NGOs. Our colleagues who are driving and steering SUN, some of whom I have known well for many years, call once again for nutrition to be mainstreamed in development work. This time the energy, declared commitment, and stated engagement of powerful players, looks stronger than ever before. I applaud this. All public-spirited professionals concerned with malnutrition should respect SUN; we should continue to engage with its process, make clear prop...

From: Alice Fabbri alealifab@gmail.com Report the WHO watchers prepared on the third day of the 130th Executive Board just uploaded. The report is available at:http://www.ghwatch.org/node/448 Highlights from the third day of the 130th Executive Board Geneva, 18.01.12 Nomination of the Director-General Dr Margaret Chan was nominated by the Executive Board for a second term as Director-General of the Organisation. This nomination will be submitted for approval to the Sixty-fifth World Health Assembly in May 2012. The first part of this session was not open to NGOs. When the session was opened again, Dr Chan took the floor thanking the Board for their confidence and support. She stated that the work in public health is never done, with the exception of disease eradication, and reaffirmed her commitment by saying: “First time I promised to work tirelessly. I have done so.[...] I will work even harder to ensure everyone reaches the highest attainable status of health”. ...

From: amit sen Issues for consideration at the 130th Session of the WHO Executive Board We hereby submit the comments and suggestions included below (see link) regarding some of the items appearing on the agenda of the WHO Executive Board. PHM is committed to a stronger WHO, adequately funded, with appropriate powers and playing the leading role in global health governance. PHM follows closely the work of the WHO, through the governing bodies and the secretariat. Across our networks we have technical experts and grass roots organisations with close interests in many of the issues coming before you over the next week. However, WHO does not make it easy for civil society NGOs to contribute to its consideration of the issues coming before it. It limits the number of organisations which have an official relationship with WHO and has recently restricted access to spaces in the Palais de Nations during the WHA. You may also know that civil society organisations have to submit their st...

December blog by Claudio Schuftan This month, I look forward to a world conference being held next June, in Rio de Janeiro. This is the ‘Rio+20’ Conference on Sustainable Development, whose website is at http://www.uncsd2012.org/rio20/ The overarching declared purpose of Rio+20 is once again, to raise consciousness of and arouse conscience on the environmental dimension, which until late last century was more or less forgotten. Veterans of world summits on any topic have reason for scepticism, but they are needed, and we must all do our best to see that Rio+20 really does mark a time when we all move towards living in ways that are fair and sane. Adequate good nutrition is smack in the middle of sustainable development. Neither is possible without the other. But as I consider these issues, like you, I am also reflecting on what has been and is happening this year in the stre...

Le cercle de PHM de Djibouti a organisé dimanche dernier une rencontre entres des jeunes filles de Djibouti ville et d’Arta qui ont débattu des risques de contamination du VIH/Sida, des infections sexuellement transmissibles et des grossesses non désirées au chef lieu de la plus jeune des régions de l’intérieur. Le cercle de PHM de djibouti a dimanche dernier eu la bonne idée d’emmener des jeunes filles, issues respectivement des quartiers populaires 5, 6,7 de la capitale au chef lieu de la région d’Arta. Celles-ci y ont rencontré des congénères de leur classe d’âge parmi la gent féminine d’Arta. Les unes et les autres ont pu soulever des sujets sensibles sous les regards bienveillants et protecteurs des facilitatrices du cercle phm dans un local d’une association féminine de la petite ville d’Arta. De leurs discussions, il ressort que de nombreuses femmes subissent de multiples situations de violence au quotidien. Ce phénomène accentue la fragilité des jeunes filles et femmes d...

November blog by Claudio Schuftan This is a bit belated report from the Rio World Conference on the Social Determinants of Health. The conference was convened by the World Health Organization together with the government of Brazil, to whom many thanks, for their enabling many colleagues from the People’s Health Movement to attend. The conference was billed as the way to advance the cause of Closing The Gap in a Generation (1), the report of the WHO Commission on the Social Determinants of Health. Cynics had a feeling that it would be nothing of the kind, and once again, the facts supported cynicism, I am sorry to say. Preparations for the conference turned out to be a case study of what is now amounting to a kind of ‘war of the words’. This is being fought between all those in the UN system and member states who believe in public health and public goods, and those who remai...