Publications

In recognition of the fact that health services all over the world were not responding to the needs of the populations they served, the World Health Organization (WHO), through the Alma-Ata Declaration of 1978 (WHO and UNICEF, 1978; Lawn et al, 2008), launched the Primary Health Care (PHC) approach which focused on the key role of shared commitment and community participation in the delivery of health services. The fact that people in urban, peri-urban and rural communities potentially make valuable contributions to the design and organization of effective health services was again underscored in the Addis Ababa Declaration (WHO, 2006), the World Health Report (WHO, 2008e) and the Ouagadougou Declaration (WHO, 2008a). In these declarations, the WHO revisited the PHC model and emphasized the principles of people centred approaches and universal coverage.