Health and Human Rights Workers for Social Justice
During the first panel discussion on health and sustainable development, it soon emerged that the main concerns of the speakers are that health and life expectancy are unevenly distributed between countries and within countries and that the most vulnerable have greater exposure to risk, worse outcome and benefit the least from any overall improvement.
The climate change shift for example is due to human action, particularly in the developed world, but the burden is born by developing countries, according to Zsuzanna Jakab, Regional Director Europe of the World Health Organization. Changes, such as the social gradient, the demographic shift, urbanization, chronic diseases and social injustice will have a huge impact and must be addressed, Jakab said.
According to Michael Hübel from the European Commission, it is fundamental that we break down the barriers between the different sectors of employment, social policy, the economy, research and the environment and implement changes in public policy that will have an impact. In order to do so we have to work together, look for the causes of causes and have more confidence in evidence, Hübel said.
Poverty costs lives and is not just individual problem, but a waste of economic resources, said keynote speaker Sarah Cook, director of the UN Research Institute for Social Development. The current crisis, which is a series of separate but interrelated events, has more visible impact in the developing world, and we risk forgetting once more low-income countries when the developed economies recover. The crisis is also not just a material crisis, but a crisis of ideas about what the economic model should look like. We could have had a global new deal. But the actors are just modifying their policies and legislations marginally or are tinkering with margins instead of introducing fundamental changes.
The crisis is rooted in longer-term strategies. As a result we have lost a decade of development and there is now a danger that we may miss another window of opportunity for a policy change. In order to reduce poverty sustainably, we must integrate social policies as essential instruments and stop rolling back provisions, which acerbates conditions in low-income countries, Cook said.
The second keynote speaker, Paul Hunt from the University of Essex, drew from his personal experience as a UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health. Hunt, who became a lawyer because he wanted to work for social justice, traveled to The Gambia, which proved to be a turning point for him. He realized that civil and political rights are important, but fail to address the harsh realities of people in Africa. As a result, he decided to focus on economic, social and cultural rights, because they are a matter of life and death, a matter of dignity, not just in Africa, but all over the world.
Until 10 years ago, we did not know the content of fundamental health; it was just a one-liner, a bumper sticker, Hunt said. Now we understand that it comprehends medical care, access to safe water, sanitation, safe working environment, right to information and requires active and informed participation of those affected by the policies. The Right to Health is not marginal or incidental, it is a core obligation, Hunt said. We also must monitor progress of the implementation and hold actors accountable, but we must not just use blame, sanctions and punishment, we need constructive accountability. For that we need to use the Right to Health to extract more funds, galvanize health campaigns and empower the disadvantaged. And, we must always remember that we are not just health workers but human rights workers and thus committed to social justice.
Paul Hunt (left) and Sara Cook (right) David McQueen, President of the IUHPE
