Civil society: the catalyst for ensuring health in the age of sustainable development

Abstract

Sustainable Development Goal Three is rightly ambitious, but achieving it will require doing global health differently. Among other things, progressive civil society organisations will need to be recognised and supported as vital partners in achieving the necessary transformations. We argue, using illustrative examples, that a robust civil society can fulfill eight essential global health functions. These include producing compelling moral arguments for action, building coalitions beyond the health sector, introducing novel policy alternatives, enhancing the legitimacy of global health initiatives and institutions, strengthening systems for health, enhancing accountability systems, mitigating the commercial determinants of health and ensuring rights-based approaches. Given that civil society activism has catalyzed tremendous progress in global health, there is a need to invest in and support it as a global public good to ensure that the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development can be realised.

Essential medicines for universal health coverage

“…Civil society participation is key to representing the public at large, as well as to protecting particular subgroups. 464 These cross-cutting themes align with broader global agendas for the SDGs, UHC, and strengthening of health systems, and the progressive realisation of the human right to health. The 24 core indicators the Commission recommends are intended to complement those being developed for the SDGs, including the WHO 100 Core Health Indicators.…”

Gender equality and gender norms: framing the opportunities for health

“…143 However, such an expansive and ambitious framework with interlinked goals, requires a "web of accountability" that engages multiple stakeholders from multiple sectors to hold each other mutually accountable for addressing gender inequalities and restrictive gender norms. 144 To begin to build this web, donors should fund independent 145 To ensure that governments meet the health outcomes included in SDG 3, they should also be held accountable for advancing SDG 5 which commits governments to ensure legal frameworks are in place to promote, enforce, and monitor gender equality and non-discrimination. 26 Additionally, an inclusive accountability web should include mechanisms to hold corporate entities accountable for egregious profit-driven marketing tactics and media content that perpetuate restrictive gender norms and stereotypes.…”

Advancing progressive health policy to reduce NCDs amidst international commercial opposition: Tobacco standardised packaging in Australia

“…In terms of evolving messengers, health advocates anticipated industry commercial opposition and recruited legal scholars with expertise in international trade and investment to help form a broad network of support. By not limiting themselves to public health alliances, tobacco control advocates successfully built coalitions beyond the health sector (Smith, Buse, & Gordon, 2016). This helped integrate a new set of trade-related messengers (Drope & Lencucha, 2013), which actively link public health and trade (Drope & Lencucha, 2014), to communicate with policymakers about the legality of SP.…”