PMAC2015

The Prince Mahidol Award Conference (PMAC) is an annual international conference focusing on policy-related health issues of global significance. The conference is hosted by the Prince Mahidol Award Foundation, the Thai Ministry of Public Health, Mahidol University and other global partners. It is an international policy forum that Global Health Institutes, both public and private, can co-own and use for advocacy and for seeking international perspectives on important global health issues. This year’s Prince Mahidol Award Conference (PMAC) took place in Bangkok, Thailand during Jan 26-31 on the theme “Global Health Post 2015 – Accelerating Equity.” The conference was held in partnership with the WHO, World Bank, UNAIDS, U.S. AID and JICA, Rockefeller Foundation, China Medical Board, and Chatham House. Registered participants numbering 614 from 58 countries participated in 5 plenary and 20 parallel sessions to discuss the above issues.

The conference addressed key issues that impact upon the goal of accelerating equity in the post-2015 world, including the potential impact of various post-2015 global objectives, how global and national health governance arrangements are organized, as well as how both global and national health financing systems are conceptualized and function in practice.

Some of the key issues summarized at the concluding plenary were:

---Sustainable Development Goals (17 Goals, 169 targets) should focus on UHC as main Goal, not sub-Goal; universalism contributes to equity

---main bottleneck for achieving SDGs are untouched political determinants of inequity and supranational influences in particular trade interests

---transition from donor dependency (e.g., transition from GAVI, GFATM): target t bring down vaccine prices to below 19 USD per fully immunized child by 2017, plan that MICs purchase 20% above LICs

---Governance and accountability for health and other sectors that impact health of population (“The present global health crisis is not primarily one of disease, but of governance”…Ilona Kickbusch)

---Changing power relations between elites and local health workers by strengthening the local health workforce

---Ensure transparency; ghost doctors are removed from payroll after electronic transfer of salaries in West Africa

---Political origins of health inequity (Ottersen et al., Lancet 2014; 383: 630-67); power asymmetry and global social norms limit the range of choice and constrain action on health inequities; there should be independent monitoring of progress made in redressing health inequities, and in countering the global political forces thant are detrimental to health

--Call to Action:

·         Amend current SDGoal 3: ‘progressively achieve universal health coverage and ensure healthy lives for all

·         Government commitment on progressive universalism

·         Health workforce (recruitment, training, deployment, retention with adequate resources…)

·         Accountability (framework, ensuring local engagement, strengthen information systems…); Service Availability and Readiness Assessment (SARA) tools for assessing effective coverage

·         Increase fiscal space for health

·         Strengthen health systems to combat outbreaks (like Ebola epidemic) (“Underinvestment in public health kills people and derails economies!”… Tim Evans)

·         Role of WHO in Global Health Governance

·         Elements for accelerating health equity

o   Effective accountability framework: empowering local communities

o   Accountability of other sectors for health impacts

o   Address political origins of health inequity: national and transnational

o   Governments ensure financial risk protection, especially the poor and vulnerable

o   Functioning, responsive and resilient PHC

o   Progressive universalism

o   Increased fiscal space for health

 For more. pl visit http://www.pmaconference.mahidol.ac.th