Health Promotion Helsinki, 2013

Promoting Health for All and Social Justice in the Era of Global Capitalism DRAFT v.4 – 12 June 2013
A call to action by the People’s Health Movement at the 8th Global Conference on Health Promotion
Helsinki, Finland – 14 June 2013
Activists from the People’s Health Movement met during the WHO 8 th Global Conference on Health Promotion to critique the official Conference Statement and develop a progressive call for action based on strong social justice principles. The draft below reflects our deliberation and is being circulated for further comment and debate. Please send commentsto globalsecretariat@phmovement.org. We wish to support the progress onHealth Promotion andHealth in All Policies and callfor actionstoward health for all.
We note the nature ofthe contemporary economic and social order asfollows:
● sustainable development isin crisis, with neoliberalism, consumerism and individualism over‐riding the values of community and internationalsolidarity;
● the crises of finance, food and climate change deny hundreds of millions of people the right to decent employment, social protection, food security, livable communities, housing, water, sanitation and allthe social determinants of health;
● conflict and violence, rooted in gross inequalities and corporate greed, plague households, communities, cities and regions and blightmillions oflives;
● together with entrenched poverty, these factors contribute to large‐scale migration to cities and across national borders; in many cases migrants and refugees are discriminated against and denied their human rights; and
● inequalitiesin income and wealth within and between countries, and resultant health inequity, are growing rapidly, with complex roots in the dominant global capitalist regime that functions via unbridled competition, obscene greed and undemocratic governance at national and international levels.
As a consequence there is rising popular demand for governments to fulfill their obligations to guarantee social protections and to commit to a sustainable model of societal well‐being that is based on equity, human rights and social justice and that emphasises “good living” (buen vivir) as opposed to unquestioned economic growth.
We underline the urgency ofrequired actions by WHOand its member States on key areasidentified in the Declaration by Public Interest Civil Society Organisations and Social Movements at the World Conference on the Social Determinants of Health, held in Rio de Janeiro in October 2011; and we urge participantsto referto
(http://www.phmovement.org/sites/www.phmovement.org/files/AlternativeCivilSocietyDeclaration20Sep.pdf)