Alma Ata Declaration

The Declaration of Alma-Ata was adopted at the International Conference on Primary Health Care (PHC), Almaty (formerly Alma-Ata), Kazakhstan (formerly Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic), 6–12 September 1978. It expressed the need for urgent action by all governments, all health and development workers, and the world community to protect and promote the health of all people. It was the first international declaration underlining the importance of primary health care. The primary health care approach has since then been accepted by member countries of the World Health Organization (WHO) as the key to achieving the goal of "Health For All" but only in developing countries at first. This applied to all other countries five years later.

The conference called for urgent and effective national and international action to develop and implement primary health care throughout the world and particularly in developing countries in a spirit of technical cooperation and in keeping with a New International Economic Order. It urged governments, the WHO, UNICEF, and other international organizations, as well as multilateral and bilateral agencies, non-governmental organizations, funding agencies, all health workers and the world community to support national and international commitment to primary health care and to channel increased technical and financial support to it, particularly in developing countries. The conference called on the aforementioned to collaborate in introducing, developing and maintaining primary health care in accordance with the spirit and content of the declaration. The declaration has 10 points and is non-binding on member states.

The first section of the declaration reaffirms the WHO definition of health as "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." The definition seeks to include social and economic sectors within the scope of attaining health and reaffirms health as a human right.

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