Objectives
Health Action International (HAI) has over 25 years of experience in the field of medicines policy and the continual monitoring of the global medicines situation. HAI’s advantage lies in its widely recognised expertise and credibility as well as its ability to draw upon the input and acitivism of offices, members and partners across the world.
The interests of the people taking medicines are only rarely put first in the process of medicines research, development and regulation.
The absence of the public perspective, as HAI recognises, has three key consequences:
- A lack of access to and the under-consumption of, medicines for the majority of the world’s poor who need them.
- The over-consumption, beyond any sensible assessment of benefit and harm, of certain profitable medicines compounded by dubious promotional tactics.
- A lack of democratisation in formulating healthcare policies.
HAI’s function is to trigger action, to serve as a multiplier, to mobilise and co-ordinate for the interests of the people. Through research, policy analysis, information sharing, capacity building and by monitoring governments, inter-governmental organisations and public-private partnerships HAI advocates consumer-sensitive health policies.
HAI shapes global pharmaco-economic policies by prioritising three strategic aims, which are:
- Access to Essential Medicines
- Rational Use of Medicines, and
- Democratic Medicines Policies.
Please click on the links below to access current work areas and activities undertaken by HAIAP:
Related News:
- ‘Who Cares About Health Care?’ article on Sri Lankan Health Care System in HAI News #150
- HAI Press Release: ‘IP Enforcement Initiatives Threaten Consumer Rights & Public Health’, HAI News #149
- HAI response to the Expert Working Group on Alternative Financing, appearing in HAI News #148
Amsterdam, 15 April 2009
