The M8 Alliance Declaration
World Health Summit 2016

This year's World Health Summit (WHS) took place in a political contextof great hope and serious alarm. Immense strides were made at the UN
General Assembly, the World Health Assembly of the WHO, as well as at
G7 and G20 meetings to strengthen commitments to the Sustainable
Development Goals and to global health action. The right of all people toUniversal Health Coverage has been forcefully endorsed. But at the sametime the plight of millions of people on the move, the predicament ofrefugees and the unacceptable destruction of health facilities, clearly
showed the limits of humanitarian and global health action in the face oflack of political will to ensure human rights, peace and security.
The past year has reinforced that we must face the health challenges set bya global risk society collectively: the challenge of antimicrobial resistance has
been likened to climate change; the Ebola crisis has been followed by severe
Zika and yellow fever outbreaks and there is increasing concern that the targetof polio eradication might not be reached on time.
Crisis is a key determinant of health - be it war, insecurity, ecological orfinancial. Around the world, 130 million people need humanitarian aid, more than
60 million people have been forcibly displaced from their homes, the global
migration and refugee movement shows no sign of abating and many countries
are still burdened with the health consequences of austerity. A new mix of healthinequity, humanitarian, ecological and security challenges has emerged whichconfronts us with the limits of existing systems. Donor countries are stretched tokeep their global commitments as pressure increases at home to set newpriorities and cut development aid. Terrorist attacks all around the world haveincreased a general feeling of insecurity and have led to protectionist responses.
This raises basic questions about global solidarity in a world of great wealth.
We, the members of the M8 Alliance, call on heads of state andgovernment to invest in people and to ensure that no one is left behind.
Following the discussion at this year’s World Health Summit, action in
five key central areas of global health is mandatory:
1. Empowerment of Women and Girls
2. Right to Health of Refugees and Migrants
3. Resilience and Global Health Security
4. Antimicrobial Resistance
5. Investment in Research, Development and Health Innovation

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World Health Summit 2016

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1. Empowerment of Women and Girls
There can be no progress in global health without addressing the health, educationand empowerment of women and girls. Healthy women and girls create
measurably healthier and more productive communities - advancing genderequality could add $12 trillion to global GDP by 2025. It is a priority to support all
women, especially the most marginalized, reach their full potential at every stageof life. This includes equal access to health care, sexual health and rights,
improving reproductive health, safer births and newborn care, preventing andtreating infectious as well as chronic diseases and addressing ageing. It also
requires applying a gender lens to all health issues.
Call for Action: The M8 Alliance calls for supporting policies which increase women’scontrol of their life choices and ensure their bodily integrity. This includes the rightof women to modern family planning and safe abortion. We recognize that progresshas been achieved for women over the past decades but that in many countries
the reality on the ground continues to fall short. The main determinants ofwomen's health are not being addressed appropriately by governments. We areparticularly concerned about the ongoing epidemic of gender-based violence. We
also call for a greater recognition of the contribution of women as paid and unpaid
health workers and see a clear need to address the global care chain in the context
of health worker migration.

2. Right to Health of Refugees and Migrants
Global health still fails the most vulnerable: populations in fragile states, victims
of war, refugees, asylum seekers, trafficked populations, people in forced labour,
slaves and global migrant workers. We must reinforce that refugees and migrants
have the same universal human rights and fundamental freedoms, including theright to health. Our approaches to global health must integrate people'smovements as a key determinant of health and we must develop strategies thatcan respond to the diversity of people on the move, as well as their needs.
Call for Action: The M8 Alliance calls for a welcoming of the outcome of the first
UN Summit on large movements of refugees and migrants in 2016 which
committed to the safety, dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms of all
migrants and reinforced the legal frameworks for refugees. The response
framework that has been developed will guide further action, also in health. It
reinforced that everyone has the right under international law to the highest
standards of physical and mental health. It has also highlighted the need for equityand access. We underline the need to monitor the follow up to these commitments
and to ensure the full accountability of UN organizations, humanitarian actors andnation states.

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World Health Summit 2016

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3. Resilience and Global Health Security
Significant activity to improve prevention, detection and response time tooutbreaks has been underway around the world following the Ebola crisis. We
welcome the many actions and initiatives to build health resilience, including thenew WHO Health Emergencies Programme, the Global Health Security Agenda(GHSA), the launching of the Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility (PEF), thesupport to the Ebola affected countries in building their health systems. Thecontinuing concern of the G7, the G20 and the UN will be critical to establish aglobal system of preparedness and response and secure sustainable financing forwork on health crisis and to invest in UHC. This includes ongoing attention to otherpublic health emergencies of international concern (PHEIC) such as polio and Zika.
Call for Action: The M8 Alliance calls on all countries and development partners toensure the full implementation of the International Health Regulations (IHR)
capacities. We encourage all countries to engage in table top and simulation
exercises to test gaps in capacity and to do this in full cooperation of many sectors.
Health systems must be strengthened, professionals trained and communities fullyinvolved. Mechanisms for accountability to the global community - though reliable,
independent and external evaluations - must be established. This includes thecommitment to ensure the last phase of polio eradication and the transition of its
assets into country health systems.
4. Antimicrobial ResistanceAt the United Nations General Assembly this year the heads of state andgovernment acknowledged that the resistance of bacterial, viral, parasitic andfungal microorganisms to antimicrobial medicines is the greatest and most urgent
global risk, requiring increased attention and coherence at the international,national regional levels. Following the recommendations of the WHO they havecalled for a global development and stewardship framework which brings together
the many stakeholders - from health, agriculture, food, animal health,development banks, UN agencies - to address the enormous challenge to humankinds. The M8 Alliance will work hard to bring about implementation of a multistakeholder approach in the development and implementation of national, regionaland global alliances and strategies to address AMR.
Call for Action: The M8 Alliance calls for an endorsement of the political declaration
on antimicrobial resistance and the WHO action plan on AMR. In particular we
support a significant research and development effort on new antimicrobial
medicines, vaccines and diagnostics, including innovation models. We further callfor determined action on implementing the ONEHEALTH approach to fight AMR andwe reinforce the need to ensure access and affordability. All health care institutionsand professions must do their utmost to fight antimicrobial resistance.

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World Health Summit 2016

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5. Investment in Research, Development and Health Innovation.
We must harness the enormous potential of science to better meet the urgent
global health needs. A stronger focus on translational research can help turn earlystage innovations into new health products, advancing the innovation to the point
where it becomes attractive for further development by the medical industry or
healthcare agencies. Many new discoveries have the potential to improve health,but turning those ideas into deliverable products can prove extremely difficult. We
require a stronger focus on the cooperation between public and private sector andbetween basic scientists, clinical researchers, clinicians and patients to drive novel
observations about the nature and progression of disease that often stimulate
basic investigations. This requires new incentives, innovative funding streams andnew solutions to challenges in relation to intellectual property, as has been outlinedin the report of the UNSG High Level Panel on Access to Medicines issued thisSeptember 2016.
Call for Action: The M8 Alliance calls for cross-sectoral contribution to developing
strategies in translational research, securing the translation of results from clinicalstudies into everyday clinical practice and health decision making, while ensuringthat new treatments and research knowledge actually reach the patients orpopulations for whom they are intended. We also commit to ensuring patients
participation in such developments. The M8 Alliance will promote the effective
translation of the new knowledge, mechanisms, and techniques generated byadvances in basic science research into new approaches for prevention, diagnosis,
and treatment of disease, so that the essential goal of improving health from bench
to bedside can be reached. We understand that this will require new forms ofcooperation between the public and the private sector.

The M8 Alliance reinforces that the challenges facing global health havebecome too numerous and too complex for a business as usual approach.
We will continue to give all our efforts to engage actors at all levels andfrom all sectors to move this agenda forward.

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World Health Summit 2016

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World Health Summit:The World Health Summit (WHS) is one of the world’s most prominent strategic
forums for global health. The interdisciplinary, international event takes place
within an atmosphere of academic freedom.
Every October, internationally renowned leaders and representatives from thesciences, politics, business, and civil society travel to Berlin for the WHS to discuss
the latest challenges facing medical research and healthcare. Under the highpatronage of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President François
Hollande and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, the World
Health Summit is the premiere international platform for exploring strategic
developments and decisions in the area of healthcare.

M8 Alliance:
The M8 Alliance of Academic Health Centers, Universities and National Academies
is a collaborative network of academic institutions known for its educational andresearch excellence. The network was founded in 2009 at the inaugural World
Health Summit, and has provided an outstanding academic foundation to every
WHS event since.
The M8 Alliance currently has 23 members based in 16 different countries, all ofwhich are committed to improving global health and wo rking with political andeconomic decision-makers to develop science-based solutions to healthchallenges worldwide.
The M8 Alliance promotes the bench to bedside to population health translationof research, as well as the transformation of current medical care approaches totreating the ill by creating healthcare systems aimed at the effective preventionof disease. The organization also works to adapt health-related solutions torapidly changing living conditions through research in priority areas, especiallyshifting demographics, urbanization, and climate change.

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World Health Summit 2016

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