Report of the Commission on Health Research for Development and the Countries of the South

Abstract

Of late, governments of affluent countries have become more brazen in using United Nations organizations and other global commissions as tools to serve their political and economic interests. WHO and UNICEF have been used by these governments to impose technocentric and dependence-promoting programs on countries of the South. The report of the Commission on Health Research for Development is yet another effort in that direction. It advocates international cooperation in health research. It merely adds to the bulk of documents on international health research. It is ahistorical. It does not analyze why WHO and UNICEF and the governments of affluent countries imposed global programs on immunization and diarrheal and respiratory diseases without bothering to gather even the most elementary data about them. There is a method in the brashness. Worse still, it ignores the rich heritage of health research of the past half a century in countries such as India, Indonesia, and Thailand. It is yet another effort to obscure the message of self-reliance contained in the Alma-Ata Declaration on Primary Health Care.