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WHO chief calls for fairness in global health policies

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-06-16 14:46

Forum on Advancing Global Health is held at UN headquarters in New York, the United States, June 15, 2009. UN Secretary-General Ban ki-moon and World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Margaret Chan presided over the Forum on Monday.[Xinhua]

She suggested that one method for achieving fairness would be for more countries to embrace primary health care.

A primary health care approach introduces greater fairness as well as efficiency, and allows health systems to reach their potential as cohesive, stabilizing social institutions, Chan said. After addressing the forum, she told reporters that "health investment will bring economic progress and more wealth."

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In his opening address to the forum, Secretary-General Ban Ki- moon said that healthy people have improved life expectancy, go to school, are more productive, take fewer days off work, have lower birth rates and thus invest more in fewer children.

"Health is the tie that binds all the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) together," he said, referring to the globally agreed anti-poverty targets with a 2015 deadline.

Eradicating poverty, illiteracy and the other challenges the MDGs seek to tackle will not be met without reaching the health targets, said Ban. "That is why global health is a top priority for me."  

The one-day forum aimed at elevating the global health debate and engaging leaders from all sectors, including government ministries, UN agencies, civil society, business, philanthropy and academia, to build on the momentum and work in intense coordination to maximize the impact of global health interventions on the ground.

 

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