NZNTV

NGO’S. There is a vision, mainly expressed by the Swiss Foreign Office and some Geneva actors, to position Geneva as a “Global Health Capital”.

As such, this vision is not particularly relevant for a NGO representative like me – call me a global health networker, activist or advocate – travelling to Geneva from time to time to attend the governing body meetings of the WHO such as the recent 136th (!) Session of their Executive Board. But…

Traditionally most of the members of the Medicus Mundi International (MMI) are rooted in development cooperation for health. The MMI Network moved into advocacy at a global level, with a focus on the WHO, when we realized that, in a globalized world, “Health for All” cannot be achieved within the health sector alone, nor at a national level.

Global health advocacy is about influencing actors and processes at global level worldwide (which implies the international, national and local level) in view of health improvements, reduction of disparities and protection against global threats. From this first definition it is obvious that global health and global health advocacy do not only deal with the health sector and its institutions, policies and governance, but with all sectors, institutions and policies determining health.

Global advocacy by the MMI Network covers key issues of global health policy and governance such as:

• health related global regulation and health policy development;
• access to health as a human right / global common;
• health equity;
• social, political and economic determinants of health and health policies;
• global governance for health and policy coherence for health in relation to other urgent themes such as trade, macro-economic policies and labour migration;
• strengthening WHO and protecting its regulatory work from undue influence.
• This needs cooperation and alliances. So the MMI Network fosters systematic sharing, strategizing and alliance building among those civil society institutions and representatives that are strongly involved in global health advocacy. Ad there is a lot of work to do in the field of improving cooperation. Geneva is not an easy place for civil society advocates.
• In Geneva, global health all starts with WHO, but includes other multilateral institutions within the UN system dealing with global health, such as the International Labour Organization (ILO), the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, World Intellectual Property Organization, or UNAIDS. Civil society involvement in these institutions means at the same time:
• supporting and defending multilateralism as key element of legitimate and just global governance for health;
• defending public political space against corporate interests;
• engaging in multlilateral policy processes and governance structures (in various forms)
• critically watching these institutions and processes (from within, as part of a civil society constituency, or from outside).
• Beyond the multilateral institutions within the UN system, there is a multitude of other actors involved in global health, some of them with greater, some with less legitimacy, with varying influence and political and financial power, and with variing entry points for civil society involvement. Among those global health actors who have their headquarters or important offices in Geneva, let me highlight the World Trade Organization, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and global health initiatives such as GAVI, MMV, and DNDi. Again there are civil society advocates who closely follow these institutions, critically watching them and eventually engaging in their processes and civil society mechanisms.
• Do not expect NGO people travelling to Geneva for “doing global health advocacy” to have an easy life. I am particularly impressed by the group of young volunteer “WHO Watchers” of the People’s Health Movement who arriving in Geneva with almost no budget, investing two or three weeks of their vacations into following and critically analysing and commenting the work of the WHO Governing Bodies. It would be great if the “Global Health Capital Geneva” could accommodate them a bit better…

Written by Thomas Schwarz for the GHP newsletter

Thomas Schwarz, Executive Secretary
Medicus Mundi International – Network Health for All
www.medicusmundi.org
www.bit.ly/EB136-advocacy