Promoting health and development: closing the implementation gap
7th Global Conference on Health Promotion organized by WHO and Kenya Ministry of Public Health will be held in Nairobi, 26-30 October 2009. It is the latest in the series, which began in Ottawa in 1986 and produced the Ottawa Charter on Health Promotion. The benchmark conference was followed by Adelaide in 1988, Sundsvall 1991, Jakarta 1997, Mexico-City 2000 and Bangkok 2005.
The urgency of health promotion
Health and development today face unprecedented threats. The financial crisis threatens the viability of national economies in general and of health systems in particular. Global warming and climate change exert a toll in human life, especially in lower income countries. Security threats create a sense of shared uncertainty for communities around the world.
In this context, health promotion has never been more timely or more needed. Over the period from the Ottawa Conference through the six global conferences to Bangkok, a large body of evidence and experience has accumulated about the importance of health promotion as an integrative, cost-effective strategy, and as an essential component of health systems primed to respond adequately to emerging concerns.