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15.06.2020
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Right to Health Health Activism

Alliance for Health holds first coordination meeting

The main motivations to create Alliance for Health are: the existence of inequities in health access and its increasing commercialization; the reduced availability and reinforce the strategy of primary health care.

The first coordination meeting of the Alliance for Health network took place last Friday (12 June) in Maputo. The following member organizations participated: medicusmundi, N'weti - Comunicação for Health, Forum Mulher, CESC - Center for Learning and Capacity Building of Civil Society and OCS - Citizen Observatory for Transparency and Good Governance in the Health Sector. The meeting aimed to formally present the Alliance for Health as a network group and reflect on its main pillars and steps to be taken in the future.

During the meeting, Ivan Zahinos, medicusmundi's International Relations Coordinator, briefly contextualized this initiative and stated that the Alliance for Health intends to work in a network to make health a right for everyone in Mozambique. On the other hand, Violeta Bila, Coordinator of the Alliance for Health at medicusmundi, recalled the main motivations that led to the creation of this network, based on the principle of health as a fundamental and universal right, namely: the existence of inequities in access to health and its growing commercialization, reduced availability and reinforcing the strategy of primary health care and inattention to the approach to social determinants of health. In short, the urgency in recognizing health as a human right and the need for collective actions to promote social change and transformation.

This initiative has the financial support of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), the Municipality of Barcelona, Open Society Foundations and other co-financers.

Inclusive social movement, in permanent dialogue

The meeting, also served to highlight the main pillars of the Alliance for Health, more specifically Research, Training (School of Activism in Health) and Advocacy (Action for Health).

During the presentation, OCS said was available to contribute to a course on Health Citizenship, CESC with a course about Social Accountability in Health and Forum Mulher with a course on Gender Inequalities.

The members agreed to hold biweekly meetings in order to plan and consolidate the execution of the activities and objectives of this network, which in the future intends to constitute itself as an integrating and inclusive social movement, in permanent dialogue, not only with Civil Society, but also with the health sector, users platforms and other sectors and interested people.

As next steps, the participating organizations established the following: the definition of criteria for new members and membership of the network; the identification of possible thematic lines that can enrich it in the different areas of action; the operational plan the elaboration; and, the official and public Alliance for Health launching.