The Open Letter addressed to the Director General, World Health Organisation
on the 13/6/2005 and subsequently posted on Click4hp and other forums has
resulted in a series of discussions about the Bangkok Charter. The WHO's 6th
global conference on health promotion to develop the Charter will be held in
Bangkok, Thailand from 7-11 August 2005. I am taking this opportunity, prior
to the conference, to provide a brief synthesis of the recurring key themes
so far in the discussion. 

1.	The WHO has not stated the purpose of embarking on the process of
developing the Bangkok Charter or the agenda(s) that it wishes to set
through the use of this document. 

2.	The process has been top-down, power-over and uses a corporate
language. This does not fit well with the principles of health promotion and
empowerment. For example, rather than promoting public-private partnerships
the Bangkok Charter should address the development of legal frameworks to
regulate them. 

3.	It is confusing to call this document the 'Bangkok Charter' and it
is more appropriate to call it the 'Bangkok Declaration'. 

4.	The Bangkok Charter does not clearly state its relationship to the
Ottawa Charter (is it a replacement, does it have greater priority and
status?) and runs the real risk of not engaging health promotion
practitioners, researchers and evaluators who can see no clear role for
themselves.

5.	The Bangkok Charter can include the Ottawa Charter, for example as
an annex, as well as endorsing its values and principles. 

6.	The Bangkok Declaration needs to endorse the principles of other key
international documents such as the Millennium Development Goals, Human
Rights, labour Rights, Environmental Treaties and Trade Agreements. 

7.	It is crucial to situate the Bangkok Declaration in relationship to
other key documents so that partners can understand how they are expected to
prioritise its concerns set within an environment of competing work agendas.

8.	The WHO lacks the resources to back up the Bangkok Charter and there
must be a clear 'post-conference plan of action' to detail by whom, how and
when concerted follow-on activities will be carried out. For example, to
develop action plans with identified resources to address issues such as
inequalities in health in each member state. 

9.	The 'plan of action' must consider how the mobilisation of health
promotion practitioners and civil society will be harnessed. Experiences
show that social change has a better chance of success if it has the support
of a 'movement'.

The above comments are intended to make a positive and constructive
contribution to the discussion at the 6th global conference on health
promotion. If your key issue has not been included please make a further
contribution so that it can be used as a part of this reference list by
concerned conference participants.

Glenn Laverack
Director of Health Promotion
The University of Auckland
School of Population Health
Dept Social and Community Health
Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand

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