Congress report - European Health Forum Gastein

Plenary Session I + II
4.3 The bargaining framework: the Valencia demonstration project
Policy sectors are not sitting around waiting to be reformed or even advised by health
experts (21). Motivation for strengthening the health impact of a policy area must exist, be
fostered, be sufficient to encourage sharing of data and exploration of options that fit a
sector’s “culture”, and carry no negative consequence (such as additional costs, loss of jobs,
jurisdictional conflicts).
These lessons were reinforced in a demonstration project carried out by the WHO Regional
Office for Europe in southern Spain in cooperation with the Valencian Institute for Public
Health and the Valencian Regional Government (65). The main goal of the demonstration was
to explore the possibility of developing IFH alliances with sectors crucial to the economic,
social and health development of the Valencian region. The identified sectors were health,
tourism (which represents a major proportion of the region’s GDP) and agriculture
(historically a very important sector for both culture and productivity and still one of the
largest economic domains).
Fig. 4.
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