The place of human rights and the people’s health movement

Global health is beset by challenges from social, economic, and political determinants with increasing threats to health equity at all levels. Yet our health systems ignore the most fundamental pathways to changing those conditions—the empowerment of people most affected by health inequity and harnessing their agency to undo unjust systems. The People’s Health Movement, a global network committed to the realization of health as a human right as contained in the Alma-Ata Declaration on Primary Health Care, presents a model for building grassroots capacity for health system change, through challenging power at all levels. In its work, multiple synergies and mutual learnings are possible with faith-based approaches to health. These include a commitment to ‘deep accountability’, to validating the lived experiences of our constituencies, to developing and sustaining boundary leadership, to giving recognition and power to community assets and to reframing health away from a disease focus.