ACCESS TO PUBLIC HEALTH INFORMATION

Maharat Foundation and EuroHealthNet, two organizations with a solid and diverse expertise and influence, carried out a range of coordinated advocacy actions on the issue of ‘access to public health information’, reaching a broader set of experts and decision-makers. Through webinars, Maharat Foundation and EuroHealthNet created a cross Mediterranean online advocacy campaign, based on recommendations collected in a series of debates, on the importance of accessing accurate information about health statistics and data, and information on health protection measures and related decision-making processes. The idea of the campaign was born during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. International speakers, factchecking journalists, activists, investigative journalists, and relevant CSOs got together to discuss the main challenges in access to health information especially in situations like the current one.

A position paper has been developed to be used as the main tool for the media campaign. It is composed of the recommendations collected from the webinars, international standards that should be applied on protecting the free flow of information at national levels, and UN special rapporteur’s guidelines on safeguarding access to information while fighting COVID-19, in addition to other relevant framework information from the EU or other international organizations such as OECD.

Here , you can find a video produced by Maharat Foundation and EuroHealthNet on the launch of the campaign.

Following are the webinars that have been organized since February 2021.

• March 02, 2021: Factchecking Initiatives and Access to Information Challenges
• March 19, 2021: Public Communication, an Effective Tool to Enhance Access to Information (video link)
• April 14, 2021: The Free Circulation of Information and the Shrinking Civic Space in the Arab World: Security Before Health (video link)
• May 25, 2021: The role of investigative journalism to support access to public health information during the COVID-19 pandemic (closed doors event)
• May 26, 2021: The challenges of supporting refugees’ health during COVID-19 (video link)
• October 18th, 2021: Launching the Policy Brief on Enhancing Access to Health Information in the MENA (  Policy Brief in English/ Policy brief in Arabic)

Bellow are related videos to the media campaign with the recommendations addressed to:

Policy makers

NGOs and civil society actors

Media and journalists