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Jakarta Declaration

 PRIORITIES FOR HEALTH PROMOTION IN THE 21ST CENTURY

1. Promote Social Responsibility for Health

 Decision makers must be firmly committed to social responsibility. Both the public and private sectors should promote health by pursuing policies and practices that:

•    Avoid harming the health of other individuals

•    Protect the environment and ensure sustainable use of resources

•    Restrict production and trade in inherently harmful goods and substances such as tobacco and armaments, as well as unhealthy marketing practices.

•    Include equity-focused health impact assessments as an integral part of policy development.

2. Increase Investments for Health Development

In many countries, current investment in health is inadequate and often ineffective. Increasing investment for health development requires a truly multi-sectoral approach, including additional resources to education, housing as well as the health sector. Greater investment for health and re-orientation of existing investments – both within and between countries – has the potential to significantly advance human development, health and quality of life.

Investment sin health should reflect the needs of certain groups such as women, children, older people, and indigenous, poor and marginalised populations

(90% curative – 10% preventative of budget)

3. Consolidate and Expand Partnerships for Health

Health promotion requires partnerships for health and social development between the different sectors at all levels of governance and society. Existing partnerships need to be strengthened and the potential for new partnerships must be explored.

Partnerships offer mutual benefit for health through the sharing of expertise, skills, and resources. Each partnership must be transparent and be based on agreed ethical principles, mutual understanding and respect. WHO guidelines should be adhered to.

4. Increase Community Capacity and Empower the Individual

Health promotion is carried out by and with people, not on or to people. It improves both the ability of individuals to take action, and the capacity of groups, organisations or communities to influence the determinants of health.

Improving the capacity of communities for health promotion requires a practical education, leadership training, and access to resources. Empowering individual’s demands more consistent, reliable access to the decision-making process and the skills and knowledge essential to effect change.

5. Secure and Infrastructure for Health Promotion

To secure an infrastructure for health promotion, new mechanisms of funding it locally, nationally and globally must be found. Incentives should be developed to influence the actions of governments, nongovernmental organisations, education institutions and the private sector to make sure that resource mobilization for health promotion is maximised.

“Settings for Health” represent the organisational base of the infrastructure required for health promotion. New Health challenges mean that new and diverse networks need to be created to achieve intersectoral collaboration. Such networks should provide mutual assistance within and between countries and facilitate exchange of information on which strategies are effective in which settings.

Training and practice of local leadership skills should be encouraged to support health promotion activities. Documentation of experiences in health promotion through research and project reporting should be enhanced to improve planning, implementation and evaluation.

All countries should develop the appropriate political, legal, educational, social and economic environments required to support health promotion.