Global Prescriptions Gendering Health and Human Rights

by Petchesky, Rosalind Pollack

• ISBN13: 9781842770078
• ISBN10: 1842770071
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-10-10
• Publisher: ZED BOOKS

Summary

Global Prescriptions is a critical yet optimistic analysis of the role of transnational women's groups in setting the agendas for women's health in international and national settings. The book reviews a decade of women's participation in UN conferences, transnational networks, national advocacy efforts and sexual and reproductive health provision, assessing both their strengths and weaknesses. It critiques the Cairo, Beijing and Copenhagen conference documents and World Bank, WHO and health sector reform policies. It also offers case studies of national-level reform and advocacy efforts and appraises the controversy concerning TRIPS, trade, and essential AIDS drugs. The author takes into account the formidable political and ideological forces confronting global justice movements and also offers a sobering reassessment of transnational women's NGOs themselves and such problems as 'NGOization', fragmentation and donor-dependency. Petchesky argues that the power of women's transnational coalitions is only as great as their organic connection with grassroots social movements.

Author Biography

Rosalind Pollack Petchesky is Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Hunter College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York.

Table of Contents

List of Boxes	vii
List of Acronyms	viii
Foreword by Thandika Mkandawire, Director of UNRISD	x
Preface and Acknowledgements	xi
1 Transnationalizing Women's Health Movements	1	(30)
From North to South: de-centring leadership, shifting vantage points	3	(4)
Ethical frameworks of reproductive and sexual rights	7	(8)
Ethical frameworks: relinking the body and social development, human rights and basic needs	15	(7)
A note on the irrepressibility of rights - deeper into the thicket	22	(9)
2 The UN Conferences as Sites of Discursive Struggle: Gains and Fault lines	31	(45)
Reassessing Cairo and Beijing: substantive achievements and shortfalls	35	(15)
Learning from the fault lines: political dynamics at the Social Summit and the 'Plus Fives'	50	(7)
Back to the future: Copenhagen+5 in 2000	57	(7)
Towards polycentric strategies and multiform visions	64	(12)
3 HIV/AIDS and the Human Right to Health: on a Collision Course with Global Capitalism	76	(57)
'People's health before patents and profits': the global campaign for access to medicines	77	(31)
'Equity pricing' or the human right to health?	108	(8)
Specifying the human right to health in the era of HIV/AIDS	116	(17)
4 Managing Health under Global Capitalism: Equity vs Productivity	133	(55)
Globalization = global capitalism	133	(9)
Global capitalism reforming itself: the World Bank on poverty and health	142	(9)
Health sector reforms: Where is gender? Where is justice?	151	(21)
Alternative ethics of health provision	172	(16)
5 Implementing International Norms at the National Level: Women's Health NGOs in the Firing Line	188	(59)
NGOs as country-level implementere and monitors	190	(19)
NGOs as service providers in lieu of the state	209	(13)
NGOs as 'partners' in health reform	222	(14)
The many faces of privatization	236	(11)
6 Conclusion: Reflections on Global Governance and Transnational Feminist Movements in an Era of Infinite War	247	(34)
Prologue	247	(5)
The need for global governance	252	(16)
The strategic place of transnational NGOs and coalitions	268	(7)
Epilogue: is another world possible?	275	(6)
Bibliography	281	(15)
Index	296