Mission Statement

Vision

Improving medical research and individual healthcare worldwide.

Purpose

Health and wellbeing are not only of the highest importance to both the individual and societies, they are also a fundamental human right. Governments and international institutions should integrate health and health care into their societal and political agendas and policies to ensure that health is regarded as a public good that must be achieved equitably and to the highest attainable level. To reach this goal, all stakeholders need to cooperate closely to effectively address global health challenges.

Coinciding with its 300-year anniversary, the Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, in partnership with the Université Paris Descartes, has stepped into this void and is organising a high-level international conference, the World Health Summit, to be held in Berlin on October 15 - 18, 2009. This event will bring together researchers, physicians, leading government officials and representatives from industry as well as from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and health care systems. Its aim is to address the most pressing issues that medicine and health care systems will face over the next decade and beyond and to develop cogent and timely responses regarding the health of populations worldwide. The Summit’s results and recommendations will serve political, economic, and health care decision-makers with their advice and function as a roadmap for the future. As a global medical forum, the World Health Summit aims at high visibility and sustainability.

Challenges

Medical progress and success in achieving equitable access to health care and preventive interventions are threatened by unsolved and newly emerging problems such as: the demographic shift to an ageing society; climate change and its health consequences that are already being felt; new types of epidemics, such as obesity, mental ill-health, and violence and injury, in developed and developing countries, in addition to the still raging epidemics of HIV, TB, and malaria; the rising costs of health care; and the worldwide economic crisis and its serious threats to the health of populations across the globe.

There is an urgent need to start a global debate on how best to tackle these challenges.

At the same time, the rapid progress of medical science and technology opens up exciting possibilities for diagnosis, therapy, and prevention with the potential to improve health, security, and economic stability worldwide. In practice, though, the mechanisms to facilitate and evaluate the implementation of innovations in health care are largely absent from global governance structures. Consequently, the huge potential of medical progress is far from being sufficiently realized.

Toward New Solutions

The challenge of the 21st Century is to clearly define goals and responsibilities, and secure investments for the development and use of new technologies, medical advances, and health-care delivery. Stable public-private partnerships and renewed political engagement with the understanding of health as a public good will be the basis for harnessing innovative power and scientific development and will be crucial for translating new insights into advances for health. It is time to show leadership. The Berlin World Health Summit intends to take that step. Establishing the World Health Summit as the foremost international gathering of its kind in health care, it is envisaged to inform and advise governments, policy makers, health-care professionals, and business leaders worldwide.

Partners

The World Health Summit has strong political support. The 2009 Summit will be held under the patronage of French President Nicolas Sarkozy and the German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

To give the project a firm academic basis, an international alliance of prestigious medical faculties and academies of medical science, the “M8 Alliance”, has been invited to come together.

The Lancet as primary primary media partner will publish a theme issue coinciding with the Summit dedicated to the topics discussed in Berlin and will continue as a partner to the World Health Summit.