People's Charter for Health

The People’s Charter for Health was adopted at the People’s Health Assembly on December 8, 2000, in Savar, Bangladesh. The Assembly was organised by several international organisations, NGOs and women’s groups “committed to the principles of primary health care and people’s perspectives.”The 14-page Charter states that governments’ failure to implement the principles of primary healthcare as stated in the Declaration of Alma-Ata has significantly aggravated the ‘global health crisis’. (The Declaration of Alma-Ata was adopted on September 12, 1978, at the International Conference on Primary Health Care in Alma-Ata, USSR; the conference was organised by the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund.)According to the Preamble to the Charter, “Health is a social, economic and political issue and above all a fundamental human right… Health for all means that powerful interests have to be challenged, that globalisation has to be opposed, and that political and economic priorities have to be drastically changed."The Charter calls on the “people of the world” to support all efforts to implement the right to health; demand that governments and international organisations reformulate, implement and enforce policies and practices which respect the right to health; build movements to pressure governments to incorporate health and human rights into national constitutions and legislation; and fight the exploitation of people’s health needs for purposes of profit.