Global Alliance on Health and Pollution

The GAHP (Global Alliance on Health and Pollution) was formed in 2012 by the World Bank, the European Commission, UN Environment, the Ministries of Environment and Ministries of Health of more than 25 low- and middle-income countries, and the nonprofit Pure Earth and other agencies, to address pollution and health at scale. Today, GAHP is made up of more than 80 members and dozens of observers that advocates on behalf of its low- and middle-income country members for resources and solutions to pollution problems.

On October, 19, 2017, GAHP, in collaboration with The Lancet and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, published the Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health in The Lancet. The report confirmed that pollution is the largest environmental cause of death and disease in the world today, killing over nine million people a year, and that the global crisis "threatens the continuing survival of human societies[1]”. The report also revealed that pollution kills three times more than AIDS, TB and malaria combined,[2] and 15 times more than wars and all forms of violence, and that 92 percent of deaths occur in low- and medium-income countries.[3]

"Very few countries are actually doing something about their environmental health problems. In fact, there are only three or four in the developing world. In the West, these problems have been dealt with for decades.... The (GAHP) Alliance will work in a collaborative way to bring resources to all these places through different avenues. We will help them to learn what they need to do and implement programmes that will save lives," said Richard Fuller, President, Pure Earth (Blacksmith Institute), Secretariat for the GAHP.[4]

"Our economy is global and so are the pollutants... We are in this together and we can solve it together. We need collaboration among countries, commitment from the international community, and investment to fight pollution. GAHP is proud to be part of that global effort—an international alliance to help countries fight pollution[5]."

GAHP assists and middle-income country governments to prioritize and address pollution, through Health and Pollution Action Planning (HPAP) and other development planning processes, in coordination with national and international stakeholders. The HPAPs are supported with country-level data and analysis compiled by The Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health. Coordinated by Pure Earth, GAHP has began HPAP work in Madagascar,[6] Thailand and Colombia, with 20 additional countries requesting the process. UNIDO has adopted the program and is running HPAP in Ghana and the Philippines.[7]

The GAHP is the first international alliance of its kind to respond to the threat of toxic pollution on a worldwide scale. The executive committee of the GAHP is based at the World Bank. Pure Earth (formerly known as the Blacksmith Institute, an NGO that works on cleaning up some of the world's worst polluted sites) serves as Secretariat for the GAHP.