The world must put health and well-being before profits and military expenditure, the 63rd Annual United Nations DPI/NGO Conference being held in Melbourne contends in its final declaration endorsed by participants this morning.
The declaration, to be presented to the General Assembly for debate, says that progress towards the health targets of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)—which aim to halve world poverty by 2015—is significantly off-track. But that “the MDGs can be, indeed must be, achieved by 2015”.
The conference, entitled Advance Global Health: Achieve the MDGs, has attracted 1600 participants representing over 350 NGOs from more than 70 countries, and has been meeting since Monday 30 August. Its Melbourne Declaration was released at the end of its final plenary session at 11 am on Wednesday 1 September.
The Melbourne Declaration notes that despite 10 years work on the MDGs—which in 2001 the leaders of 192 countries made a commitment to fulfil by 2015—a billion people around the world are still malnourished, 2.6 billion lack access to adequate sanitation, nine million children die before the age of five and environmental degradation including climate change represents a significant health threat.
Among other actions, the declaration calls for:
- equity in healthcare and a greater say for the community in designing programs;
- the empowerment of women; and
- the replenishment of the Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria and the global vaccine initiative.
It also urges governments “to respect and implement” existing agreements on limiting tobacco trade and use, marketing breast milk substitutes, and retaining health workers.
In particular, the declaration says, we should “change international financial and trade systems so they create equality of opportunity for people in resource poor countries – fair trade not free trade and trade that maximizes health and well-being before profits”.
And it advocates “the conversion of military spending to greater expenditures on: training and retraining health workers, teachers, and infrastructure for the health and education sectors”.
In presenting the Declaration to the conference for endorsement, the conference chair, Prof Mary Norton outlined the exhaustive process over more than four months whereby all NGOs and their representatives had been consulted in putting together the declaration.
The Melbourne declaration is to be presented to conference convenor Prof Phil Batterham to convey to the Australian Government. Prof Norton urged all NGOs also to lobby their national governments to support the Melbourne Declaration: “Take it to your governments, and urge them to implement it in the best way possible,”she told delegates. “We would would like this document to inform the government leaders who are currently crafting the outcomes for the UN’s MDG summit later this month.”
For further information, contact Niall Byrne, Media Coordinator NGO Media, +61 (417) 131 977, niall@scienceinpublic.com.au
The Melbourne declaration is now online at http://makinghealthglobal.com.au/media/conference-releases/the-declaration/
