Regional Conference of Parliamentarians on "Legislative and Policy Actions for Promoting Health", Address, 8-9 October 2007, Bali, Indonesia

Address By Dr Samlee Plianbangchang Regional Director, WHO South-East Asia At Regional Conference of Parliamentarians on “Legislative and Policy Actions for Promoting Health” Bali, Indonesia 8-9 October 2007 Regional Conference of Parliamentarians on “Legislative and Policy Actions for Promoting Health” 8-9 October 2007 Bali, Indonesia Address by DR SAMLEE PLIANBANGCHANG REGIONAL DIRECTOR, WHO SOUTH-EAST ASIA Honourable Adviser to the Minister of Health, the Government of Indonesia, Dr Rachami Untoro; Deputy Governor of Bali, Mr Wayan Subagiartha; Honourable Parliamentarians, Distinguished participants, Honourable guests; Ladies and gentlemen, It is with great pleasure that I warmly welcome you all to this important Conference. At the outset, I would like to thank the Government of Indonesia for accepting to host the meeting in this famous land of Bali. I thank the honourable parliamentarians and all other participants for sparing their valuable time to come to share their experiences. It is increasingly becoming evident that all aspects of health development are multisectoral, requiring action from all sectors. And Parliamentarians’ Forum is an appropriate place to discuss the multisectorality of health issues in various areas of our concern. It is an important forum to reach consensus on the issues of priority public health problems. Therefore, the WHO Regional Office for South-East Asia has been convening the Regional Parliamentarians’ Conference on topical subjects from time to time, to discuss multisectoral actions in specific areas of health concern. 2 To facilitate our deliberations, let me put the various issues involved in this connection in a proper perspective, within a broad framework. Before and immediately after the two World Wars, the world was busy fighting diseases. Efforts were devoted mostly to building up curative service systems for treatment of sick people, in particular. Public health programmes were developed and launched to control disease outbreaks and their spread, especially of communicable diseases. Until the World Health Assembly passed a resolution in 1977 calling for the attainment of health for all, health matters were virtually taken to be the sole responsibility of the health sector. It was only after 1977 that there was rapid change in the concept and approach to health development. Since then, this concept has been much expanded. So has been the case with health development framework and strategy. Health is no longer the sole responsibility of the health sector. In fact, at both national and international levels, health has become a shared responsibility, calling for multisectoral and multiagency actions. All sectors, including health, have to work in coordination and cooperation to achieve national health development goal. Health development is considered a very important strategy for human resource development. Development sectors have therefore to recognize their individual health responsibilities. They have to take health concerns into account for developing and implementing their individual sectoral development programmes. They also have to ensure that their development activities do not affect the health of people adversely. In fact, they have to ensure that such activities contribute positively and provide health benefits to people in the community. Such responsibilities of various development sectors are termed the “healthy sectoral policies”. These are policies under which respective sectors also have to invest. Nowadays, health issues are becoming increasingly public concerns, and these concerns are becoming the subjects for public debate. It is for this reason that health is increasingly acquiring a place on the political 3 agenda for social and economic development. To provide good health to all citizens, regardless of their social and economic strata, is a goal for all governments worldwide. This is a goal that calls for equity and social justice in the provision of health care and services, and recognizes health as a fundamental right of everyone. In providing health care services to their populations, governments have to ensure universal coverage by reaching the unreached. The unreached are usually the poor, underserved, underprivileged, marginalized and vulnerable people. In this context, we have to work towards social control of health technology - technology that is socially and culturally appropriate and acceptable to all people in the community, and which is economically affordable by everyone in the community. Such a technology also includes information - information that enlightens the population to understand and recognize health risks, such as those related to the use of tobacco and alcohol. Today, the world desires that all its people live longer and healthier. It wants all its people to attain a level of health that can permit them to lead socially and economically satisfying and productive lives. However, to achieve this social goal, among other things, the burden of diseases must be reduced through primary prevention - prevention that is achieved through public health interventions, focusing on the management of health risks and health determinants. Furthermore, the world needs to use public health interventions for reducing poverty. Without health, there will be no economic productivity or progress. Thus, poverty will not be reduced. At the same time, the world also needs to use health as a bridge for peace. There will be no health if there is no peace. All these goals need multisectoral actions and healthy sectoral policies. All development sectors must invest in health if the ultimate goal of health for all is to be attained. These issues must firstly be dealt with at political and decision-making levels in countries. The parliamentarians’ platform is an appropriate place 4 for reviewing and discussing the issues involved as it is a place where we can push forward priority health concerns to be reflected on the national development agenda. For this, we need legislative actions, as well as national policy and commitment. For this conference, we have selected three areas of public health concern for our deliberations. These are tobacco control; reducing harm from alcohol use; and health promotion. Health promotion is actually a cross-cutting area, involving many disciplines and sectors. However, for health promotion, WHO is presently focusing on diet, physical activity and lifestyle. As the secretariat members will be presenting the three subjects, I would not like to touch on their technical contents. At the same time, however, I would like to remind you that we need to concentrate our attention on legislative actions, policy options and innovative financing respectively, as far as the three areas mentioned above are concerned. I have briefly laid down a broad framework of health development that calls for actions by all sectors involved. The meeting may deliberate upon various aspects of those three specific areas of concern within this broad framework. I hope that the distinguished participants will find this Conference interesting and useful, as usual. I also hope that this Conference would lead us to developing more effective strategies for tobacco control, reducing harm from alcohol use, and health promotion. I wish all of you all the best and all success in your deliberations. I also wish that the meeting is fruitful. And, finally, I wish you all an enjoyable stay in Bali. Thank you.