Capacity Building - sustainable financing and infrastructures for health promotion

Objectives:
“Building sustainable health promotion infrastructure and capacity at all levels is fundamental to closing the implementation gap” in health and development through health promotion (Nairobi Call to Action, 7th Global Conference on Health Promotion 2009).

There is a variety of options for capacity building in terms of establishing sustainable financing mechanisms and infrastructures for health promotion (HP). These range from implementing dedicated resources in government structures (within Ministries) to the exploitation of private funding opportunities through from philanthropy for example. Each of these “extremes” are linked with advantages and opportunities on the one hand and disadvantages and threats on the other hand. The challenge is to find forms of sustainable financing mechanisms and infrastructures for HP which benefit from the advantages of these extremes and minimise their drawback and threats. This session will debate such advantages and disadvantages and propose / discuss promising solutions. Special attention will be given to how alternative approaches to sustainable financing and infrastructures for HP fit with established structures in different countries.

Key Messages:

• Sustainable financing of health promotion is something worth fighting for to achieve long-term benefits for health, particularly improvements in the areas of social determinants of health and health equity.
• The advantages and disadvantages of different types of funding models and infrastructures for health promotion will be reviewed with specific examples in different countries in regard to how well they meet the challenges of building sustainable infrastructure and capacity for health promotion.
• Along a continuum of funding models and infrastructures there are:
  
  • government based approaches - within Ministries.
  • government based approaches - public bodies closely linked to government.
  • health promotion foundations and 
  • private foundations.
    

• Dr Thomas Mattig, Director, Health Promotion Switzerland, Bern, Switzerland

• Prof Jürgen Pelikan, Key Researcher, Ludwig Boltzmann Institute Health Promotion Research, Director, WHO-CC Health Promotion in Hospitals and Health Care, Vienna/ Austria

• Mr Thomas Mattig, Director, Health Promotion Switzerland, Bern, Switzerland
• Mr Christoph Hörhan, CEO, Austrian Health Promotion Foundation, Vienna, Austria
• Dr Krissada Raungarreerat, CEO Thai Health Promotion Foundation, Bangkok, Thailand
• Dr Syed Jaffar Hussain, Regional Advisor Health Promotion/Injury and Violence Prevention and Disability, World Health Organization Regional Office for Eastern Mediterranean Region, Cairo, Egypt (to be confirmed)
• Mr Graham Robertson, Chief Executive, Health Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
• Ms Noni Walker, International Network for Health Promotion Foundations, Australia
  Presentation (PPS, 2.24 MB)