Towards Sustainable Global Health

Sustainable Global Health, as an integral part of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), plays a key role for global stability as well as for worldwide economics and politics. The International Conference "Towards Sustainable Global Health" (Bonn, Germany, 9-11 May 2007) addressed a broad range of issues related to human health, including TVET as a tool for the private sector to exercise responsibility and interest in using the workplaces as a route and means for education, and for a wide participation of every citizen in securing his or her individual health and well-being.

The conference was organised by UNESCO-UNEVOC, UNU-EHS, ILO, IHDP and the University of Bonn, Institute for Hygiene and Public Health (WHO CC).

UNESCO-UNEVOC/ILO parallel session on promoting health and hygiene in and through the workplace – the role of TVET

The idea for the international conference “Towards Sustainable Global Health” resulted from the realisation that there will be no alleviation of poverty without success in control of serious public health threats, no economic prosperity and sustainability without a healthy workforce, and no social stability and peace as long as people have to suffer from insufficient health services, from malnutrition, from pandemics such as HIV/AIDS, or from lack of safe water.

While these issues are already being addressed among researchers, professionals and health policy makers, it should be a key interest of any successful strategy for sustainable health development to reach out and involve people at the local level and in their individual capacity. It is important to teach people how to maintain their health and working ability, and equally to make enterprises and occupational health services aware of their responsibility to keep the workforce healthy. The human capital has been and will be the essential resource for every country’s development, prosperity and sustainable living conditions. This is where technical and vocational education and training (TVET) can play a role as a mechanism to distribute information on sustainable public health and promote key elements such as health competence and hygiene. Furthermore, the knowledge acquired in school or at the workplace can be applied at home, too, and TVET students and workers can turn into multipliers and serve to improve their families’ and communities’ health and safety.

In this roundtable, the role of TVET in promoting sustainable global health was examined from two different angles:

TVET as a means to increase the knowledge and competences of TVET students and workers with regard to health and hygiene (both personal as well as occupational health): and
TVET for key professions – sustainable health can only be achieved if personnel working in the area of health care, water and sanitation, waste management, food processing, etc. have received high quality TVET.

The presentations included:

The role of the Plumbing Industry in Global Health (Robert Burgon, World Plumbing Conference)
Workplace Medical Programs (Dr. Christoph Oberlinner, BASF Aktiengesellschaft, Occupational Medicine and Health Protection, Ludwigshafen, Germany)
Making Decent Work a global Goal and a national Reality (Gerd Albracht, OSH and Decent Work Country Programme, ILO, Geneva, Switzerland)
HIV/AIDS prevention – Reaching young people through TVET (Christopher Batsalelwang, Botswana Training Authority)

Links

http://www.gemini.de/global-health