RGH Video Blog – Rights-based Approach to Global Health
Hello and welcome to the Global Health Video Class. My name is Dr. Elvira Beracochea and I am the president and CEO of Realizing Global Health. We are a consultant company working in global health to make sure that health professionals and organizations have the knowledge and the tools to deliver quality health care for everyone, everywhere, every day. Today’s video class is about a very important thing… About 3 years ago, I wrote this book ‘Rights-based Approaches to Public Health’ because I believe that human rights are the basis of how we are going to really develop the health system and how we are going to develop ourselves – the human species on this planet. This book has a number of very good approaches to how we can bring in human rights into public health.
Today, I want to talk about bringing rights-based approaches to global health. So, if you are a government representative, or with a foundation, organization or a health professional working to improve the health services in a country – this lesson will be interesting to you. What I mean by ‘rights-based approach’ is this approach is based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This is a document that was approved a long time ago, after World War II in 1948. There are just 30 articles in the declaration. Article number 25 is the most important—it declares the right to health.
What does it mean to you? It means that everything that we do is to help realize the right to health for every individual. That doesn’t mean that the government has to provide everything or that everybody is entitled to everything, but what it means is that we progressively have to strive to reach out to those we are not reaching. If you are working in government, in either a developing country or a developed country, I want you to consider a rights-based approach now in the New Year. It’s 2015 and we have a unique opportunity to look forward for the next 15 years, thinking about what we learned from the MGDs and look at the future—from the Millennium Development Goals to sustainable development goals. How are we going to advance the health agenda to make sure we are advancing as a species and really making a world fairer and healthier for everybody?
So what does it mean to think in these terms? You read the universal declaration of human rights, you read article 25, you understand that every human has the same rights everywhere and anywhere in the world. There is no difference between genders or social classes, stigmas, religions, etc. Nothing will take away your human rights. If you are human, you are entitled to them.
What does it mean in health? It means that we are going to make sure that everything we do is reaching those we are not reaching. Who are those in the slums whose services are not appropriate to them? Who are those in the hard to reach parts of the country? How can we make sure that we include them? How can we make sure that we provide them with what they need to stay healthy and for their children to survive?
Think about human rights and article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This year, ask yourself “How can I make this happen?” If you are from the government, that’s very important because you are the responsible party. According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that most countries have been signatory to, governments are duty bearers. You bear the duty to make sure that all of these rights are fulfilled, protected and respected. We have to find ways to do that. This doesn’t mean that we don’t have to do everything—because we know that resources are limited. However, we can look for innovative ways of making it work for as many people as we can while we continuously expand our reach and looking for better ways to reach those we are not reaching yet.
Again, if you are a government employee, you carry the responsibility of making sure the right to health is fulfilled, protected, and respected. Think about how you can do that this year. Think about a rights-based approach and how you can embrace that in your work. I would love to hear more about your work and what you think about the rights-based approach and how you plan to implement a rights-based approach in your organization. If you work for a donor organization, then your foundation is contributing to that and you can also embrace a rights-based approach because you are part of the right to development. This is also a part of helping to fulfill the right to health. Those two rights are crucial and I will talk more about that next time. In the meantime, think about how you can use all of the available resources in your country to help advance the rights-based approach to fulfill, respect and protect the right to health of everyone everywhere every day. See you next time!
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