From Alma Ata to the SDG s

The Politics of Global Health Governance and the Elusive “Health for All”

Bibliographic Data

ID12430953
AuthorsMartin Weber (0000-0002-3533-5850, 1 The University of Queensland Australia St. Lucia, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume26
Issue1
Pages176-197
Publication date2020-04-09
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueGlobal Governance A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1075-2846 • E-ISSN: 1942-6720
PublisherLynne Rienner Publishers (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1163/19426720-02601005
OpenAlexW3015283161
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited12

The Alma Ata Declaration of 1978 proclaimed “health for all by the year 2000.” In 2019 health is mainstreamed through the United Nations’ 2030 Sustainable Development Goals ( SDG s) initiative. Contributing to critical analysis of global health governance ( GHG ), this article reconstructs the normative premises of the Alma Ata Declaration, the political project it represented, and the successful cases it was inspired by. It contrasts this with an account of the emergence and gradual consolidation of the GHG agenda that is today reflected in the SDG s. The calls for a return to the Alma Ata Declaration resonate strongly among human rights advocates, community activists, and the medical profession. This is because of the socially exclusionary effects of the dominant health governance agenda shaped by distinctively neoliberal premises. The article argues that in the final analysis the two different approaches reflect very different ideas and ideals about “who global health governance is for.”

Consolidation (business · Corporate governance · Declaration · Economics · Global governance · Human rights · International law · Management · Normative · Political science · Politics · Public international law · Sociology · Global Public Health Policies and Epidemiology · Human Rights and Development · Law · Public Administration · Public Health Policies and Education

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