1. Introduction
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This background introductory paper adopted at the Ministerial meeting on Health and Sustainable Development, outlines how health is a product of sustainable development, and how improvements in health, and indeed health services, contribute to sustainable development. After outlining health trends, it explores the links between health and poverty, economic growth and equity (particularly with regard to the process of globalisation), natural resources and the environment, and health services. While the links with health are addressed separately for purposes of elucidation, it cannot be overemphasised that they do not happen independantly of one another. Rather, they are all interconnected, with sustainable development in one area positively influencing the others, and vice versa, setting up a virtuous cycle. The opposite also applies.
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