First
African Inter-Ministerial Conference on
Health and Environment
Brazzaville/Nairobi, 22 August 2008 - Diseases
caused by environmental change are responsible
for too many deaths in Africa.
In 2002 alone, unsafe
water, pollution, poor sanitation, inadequate
waste disposal, insufficient disease vector
control and exposure to chemicals claimed
about 2.4 million lives.
In a bid to address
this challenge, the First Inter-Ministerial
Conference on Health and Environment in
Africa will be held in Libreville, Gabon
from 26 to 29 August under the slogan "Health
security through healthy environments".
Jointly organized by
the World Health Organization (WHO) and
the United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP) and hosted by the Government of Gabon,
the conference is expected to attract hundreds
of delegates including Health Ministers,
Ministers of Environment, high-level experts,
academics, policy makers, bilateral &
multilateral institutions and non-governmental
organisations.
The conference - the first
of its kind in Africa - aims to secure political
commitment for an integrated approach to
policy and the institutional and investment
changes required to reduce environmental
threats to health.
Angela Cropper, UNEP's
Deputy Executive Director said: "While
our knowledge has been increasing about
how ecosystems and species and the quality
of the environment relate to human health,
there is a lag in concerted policy and action
to address this relationship. Bringing together
Ministers of Environment and Health in this
Conference is an opportunity to lay the
basis for doing so in and on behalf of the
continent of Africa. We need to make sure
that this partnership between WHO and UNEP
endures and gets stronger, in order for
the United Nations System to offer to Africa
the quality of technical and policy support
which will be needed."
The Conference will
explore the links between health and environment.
It intends to build a strategic health and
environment alliance that will influence
development policies at the macro-economic
and sectoral levels, impact on existing
investment frameworks and resource allocation,
and lead to tangible outcomes in the short
and medium terms.
