JORDAN: WHO Puts Good Health at Heart of Development Agenda

AMMAN, Dic 24 (IPS) - The World Health Organisation (WHO) has stated that health should be placed at the centre of the development agenda to ensure that the protection and promotion of the quality of life goes hand in hand with economic growth.

The WHO 'Task Force on Health and Development' made the appeal during its meeting this week in the Jordanian capital Amman.

At the end of the three-day meeting Dr Julius Nyerere, the chairman of the South Centre and former premier of Tanzania, said: "All we are saying is that development has to be meaningful to people and include the physical and spiritual well-being of the people.

"Decision makers have to take into account everything that is important to human beings such as health, democracy, freedom and economic factors."

The Task Force was invited to hold their meeting in Amman by Jordan's King Hussein and hosted by Crown Prince Hassan in order to formulate a draft declaration for the World Summit for Social Development that gathers in Copenhagen next April.

"I am one of the initiators of the Task Force and I presented the resolutions here. What I can definitely say is that our resolutions are aimed not only at the World Summit but a programme intended to go far beyond that," Assame Diop, Senegal Minister of Public Health said.

"Take malaria, for example. It is an illness which reduces our national income because farmers cannot produce," he said. "We must have a programme of action, otherwise we will never win against malaria.

"What we want is to have people, government and donors know that we can't have development without a population enjoying good health. Without it we cannot produce national wealth. Health is a condition of development."

"In addition, health can be used a bridge to peace," said Branford M. Tait, the former Barbados minister of health and a current senator. He cited the example of WHO's use of the relative period of peace in Afghanistan after the Soviet Union conflict to implement a health and vaccination programme.

The displacement of people and widespread social disruption caused by civil conflicts and wars in many parts of the world are having health consequences of an unprecedented and traumatic character. The traumas are likely to be transmitted from one generation to another.

© Inter Press Service (2014) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service