06 July 2010

For those who expected that the baton would be passed from G8 to G20, that wider engagement of middle income countries would herald a human rights based approach to health and development and that global governance would be transformed, this Chatham House meeting brought a useful dose of realism. G8 will remain an important focus for the global health and development agenda. G20 is unlikely to address human rights, health is unlikely to be central to its agenda, the voices of civil society organisations are not expected to be heard at its meetings and there is little prospect of better connection with the UN system. This is a personal perspective of a truly fascinating meeting, for an authoritative view check the web site at: http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk

2 July 2010

Despite rumours to the contrary, last week's G8 meeting in Muskoka, Canada confirmed to the world that this highly influential club of powerful countries plus the EU has no intention of being phased out in the near future. While their influence on global economic affairs has been eclipsed by the G20, the G8 will remain an influential forum to address the most pressing issues in development, peace and global security (Summit Conclusions). This year has brought a totally new element into play: the first ever G8 accountability report. The Muskoka Accountability Report, commissioned at the 2009 L'Aquila Summit, aims to assess actions taken and their results against the commitments that the G8 has made for development over the last 30 years.

28 June 2010

In a presentation delivered at the June 2010 "Global Health: Together we can make it" conference in Brussels, Professor Ilona Kickbusch, Director of the Global Health Programme at the Graduate Institute, Geneva and Chair of the Global Health Europe Task Force, summarized the key challenges that have to be tackled in order to improve global governance for health.

15 June 2010

On 10-11 June 2010, the EU for the very first time organized a two day high-level event on global health. The central office of the European Commission, the Berlaymont building, was decorated for all to see, with a poster for the conference running down nearly the full height of its 18 floors in the heart of Brussels' EU quarter. Never has the EU's commitment to its global health responsibilities been so boldly displayed. The EU's commitment to global health was reinforced in the conference opening by EU Commissioner for Public Health John Dalli, presence of European Commission director generals for public health, development and research, and again in speeches from Margaret Chan, Director General of the World Health Organization, Bience Gawanas, African Union Commissioner for Social Affairs, and David Chiriboga, Minister for Health, Ecuador.

07 June 2010

The EU Commission launches its consultation on "Strengthening European Union Preparedness on Pandemic Influenza" against a background of accusations that the threat of this pandemic was overstated and that European countries (with the exception of Poland) were persuaded to invest too much in stocks of anti-viral medicines. This controversy was fuelled by the revelations published in the BMJ that WHO guidance issued in 2004 was authored by three scientists who had previously received payment for other work from Roche, which makes Tamiflu, and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), which produces Relenza. The report by Paul Flynn, a UK Member of Parliament, on ''The handling of the H1N1 pandemic: more transparency needed'' which was adopted by the Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee of the Council of Europe Assembly at its meeting in Paris on 4 June raises even more questions.