How can health remain central post-2015 in a sustainable development paradigm?

Abstract

In two years, the uncompleted tasks of the Millennium Development Goals will be merged with the agenda articulated in the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. This process will seek to integrate economic development (including the elimination of extreme poverty), social inclusion, environmental sustainability, and good governance into a combined sustainable development agenda. The first phase of consultation for the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals reached completion in the May 2013 report to the Secretary-General of the High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda. Health did well out of the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) process, but the global context and framing of the new agenda is substantially different, and health advocates cannot automatically assume the same prominence. This paper argues that to remain central to continuing negotiations and the future implementation, four strategic shifts are urgently required. Advocates need to reframe health from the poverty reduction focus of the MDGs to embrace the social sustainability paradigm that underpins the new goals. Second, health advocates need to speak—and listen—to the whole sustainable development agenda, and assert health in every theme and every relevant policy, something that is not yet happening in current thematic debates. Third, we need to construct goals that will be truly “universal”, that will engage every nation—a significant re-orientation from the focus on low-income countries of the MDGs. And finally, health advocates need to overtly explore what global governance structures will be needed to finance and implement these universal Sustainable Development Goals.

Child survival revolutions revisited – lessons learned from Bangladesh, Nicaragua, Rwanda and Vietnam

“…The world has now committed itself to reaching 17 Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, and there is only one specific health goal, number three, that focuses on good health and wellbeing, 47. On the one hand, this change in focus may threaten further progress if the previous achievements are forgotten and not sustained 48, 49. On the other hand, it may lead to a positive paradigm shift towards prevention and extensive multisectorial efforts that target poverty alleviation and improved health and welfare 47.…”

Women's health beyond 2015: challenges and opportunities for global health governance

“…infectious diseases, maternal and child health), but the post‐2015 agenda is a broader, more ambitious agenda which will require coordination, goodwill and political commitment across multiple sectors. The post‐2015 agenda seeks to integrate economic development (including poverty elimination), social inclusion, environmental sustainability, and good governance into a combined sustainable development agenda . The process to define the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) so far has identified three targets: ‘accelerating progress on the health MDG agenda’; ‘reducing the burden of major non‐communicable diseases’ (NCDs); and ‘ensuring universal health coverage and access’.…”

“…Thirdly, in the context of universal health coverage (UHC) and the need to strengthen health systems through health systems research, ‘effective and affordable health interventions and technologies will fail to substantially improve health outcomes for women in developing countries unless health systems within these countries can deliver appropriate health services that meet women's specific needs’ . In the post‐2015 agenda, UHC has been incorporated as a key instrument in achieving health outcomes and it is important that the relevant interventions and technologies be fully integrated within the UHC and health systems frameworks. This dimension is especially important for non‐communicable diseases, which require longer‐term care and can impose huge burdens on fragile health systems.…”

A Word of Caution: Human Rights, Disability, and Implementation of the Post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals

“…The question I will seek to address in this article for Laws' Special Issue on Disability and Human Rights, however, is whether the 17 SDGs are as "bold and transformative" ( [1], p. 1, preamble), if not adequately sufficient, to provide seminal instruction for the de facto advance of the human rights of persons with disabilities in the unfolding twenty-first century. My views in response to this question are based on having worked as part of a right to health research collaborative for the last three years, tasked with empirically monitoring and providing advice to the European Commission on health's location in the unfolding post-2015 SDGs [3][4][5]. These views are further grounded in my recent, parallel experience in both disability research and rights advocacy [6][7][8][9][10].…”