Mission Statement

The NGO Forum for Health’s mission is to make health for all a reality by promoting equity and justice in health care, by mobilising resources, by advocating for the rights of all persons at all stages of their lives, and by creating an environment conductive to wholesome living. The forum places special emphasis on the rights and the improvement of health of the socially excluded and marginalized. It considers that the goal of health for all is a moral and ethical imperative and that the realisation of this health ideal will itself contribute to people’s feelings of well-being.

Pursuit of the Mission

The Forum purses its mission through an integrated, inter-sectoral and holistic commitment to :

1. Fostering partnership in health among NGOs and with UN agencies and programmes (such as WHO and UNICEF), in addition to governments, donor agencies and the private sector, thereby stimulating the sharing of information and experiences;
2. Promoting health in the holistic sense, including its economic, social and spiritual dimensions;
3. Advocating for increased resources for healthy public policies and health services;
4. Insuring the integration of a gender perspective into all health policies and programmes;
5. Identifying present and futures trends in health, new and emerging disease patterns and seeking joint actions to meet those needs;
6. Developing health priorities in the order of magnitude of disease, allocating available resources accordingly and developing effective short and long-term strategies;
7. Undertaking action-oriented studies;
8. Facilitating the connection and expansion of networks for promoting health;
9. Identifying and recognising various talents, resources and capacities among the member NGOs and mobilising them for a synergetic effect;
10. Equipping constituencies, national groups and local partners, and providing a link with a global perspective (possibly through the internet);
11. Developing codes of conduct, ethical standards and best practises; and
12. Promoting the creation of a Global Health Watch for monitoring international agencies in the implementation of health care policies, services and resource allocation at various levels.