People's Health Movement: History, Direction, Analysis and Strategy

This presentation will provide background to the People’s Health Movement (PHM); its history, composition, direction, analysis and strategy.

PHM was formed following the first People’s Health Assembly in Bangladesh in December 2000. PHA 2000 was convened by eight global civil society networks and attended by around 1500 people from 75 countries, largely from the global South. The organisations represented ranged from international networks to locally focused grassroots organisations.

PHA 2000 adopted the People’s Charter for Health, which outlined the global health situation, identified the barriers to Health for All and adopted a set of principles, priorities and strategies to guide the people’s health social movement globally.  The Charter affirms the Right to Health as a key mobilising principle.

PHM comprises networks of civil society organizations operating locally, nationally and internationally and working towards Health for All along the lines articulated in the Charter.

Where the barriers to health are locally determined the strategies of engagement will be locally specific. However, local issues are conditioned by more general factors, including the dynamics of economic globalization. To address the local issues in ways which also address the global circumstances, local organisations from different settings need to work together. 

The concept of global governance helps to understand how an unfair economic regime is reproduced, at great cost to the health of marginalized populations. The governance perspective also helps to frame strategies aimed at changing the dynamics of this regime. Out of this analysis comes a range of activities, some focused at the local and specific and others at a more general level.

PHM (‘globalization from below’) provides a shared platform for reflection, analysis, advocacy and campaigning. Through communication and sharing, it supports the emergence of a stronger solidarity across both national borders and across the boundaries of class, race, gender and religion.