The Forum for Global Health Disability and Development:

Background: 

Several key leadership positions in global health and development are currently being decided. Positions that will be filled over the next few months include Director General of the World Health Organization, Executive Director of the Global Fund, Executive Director of the World Food Programme, World Bank Vice President for Human Development, and Secretary General of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).

The United Nations have set the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as the number one priority, with specific outcomes to be achieved by 2015. However, the vast majority of countries are well off the mark and unlikely to achieve these outcomes by 2015. The policies set for achieving the MDGs in the next year will be critical to achieving those outcomes and to development. Many people, in health and in other sectors, feel that policies for HIV/AIDS are particularly critical. There is an increasing public debate on the Millennium Development Goals and their achievability. In parallel, there is also growing public concern and debate about governance and transparency in the United Nations system and the World Health Organization, including the processes of choosing their leaders.

The Interactive Health Network and the Institute for Sustainable Health Education Development are both formal Global Development Learning Network (GDLN) partners, and, with the GDLN, have produced many high profile global media events and debates in health and development. This forum expands on a longstanding series that IHN has held with the GDLN and others, using videoconferencing as a medium for public debate and exchange regarding key international policies amongst leaders in international development and candidates for strategic positions, setting out an open process for leaders in health and disability to outline their positions regarding means of achieving the Millennium Development Goals, which represent the principal policy statement of the UN and of WHO and its member states (see www.ihn.info, www.ished.org)

Examples of previous activities by the Institute for Sustainable Health Education and Development and the Interactive Health Network include:

1. Special Session of the African Union on HIV, Malaria, TB and ORD, 2003 : 

www.ihn.info/index4.php?option=news&task=viewarticle&sid=50   www.kaisernetwork.org/health_cast/hcast_index.cfm?display=detail&hc=921 

2. World Health Organization Director General Candidate Debate, 2003: http://www.kaisernetwork.org/health_cast/hcast_index.cfm?display=detail&hc=759

3. The European Union - Afro Caribbean Pacific Summit Special Session on Evidence Based Policies in HIV/AIDS, June 2006.

4. The Interactive Health Network – Global Development Learning Network Global Health Series, 1998 to the present, including worldwide videoconferences involving Heads of State, Ministers of Health, and other Leaders in Global Health.

5. The Evidence Base for Effective National Policies in HIV/AIDS and ORD: Dialogue between key national policy makers, with invited participation by candidates for the Global Fund Executive Directorship, 25 October 2006

 Keynote: Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and President of Realising Rights: the Ethical Globalisation Initiative.