Governments should fund the necessary health research to ensure vibrant health systems and to reduce inequity and social injustice, health ministers urged at the conclusion of the summit on health research held in Mexico last week.

No specific level of funding was agreed, despite an initial suggestion that governments in developing countries might invest 2% of national health expenditure in research and capacity building and that development agencies could earmark at least 5% of their financing of the health sector for the same purpose, proposals first made by the international Commission on Health Research for Development in 1990.

Fifty eight ministries of health were represented, half by ministers, at the four day summit, which was designed to build momentum for a global initiative to strengthen health systems through research and in the process to help achieve the United Nations' millennium development goals.

A 10 point call for action was agreed by the ministerial representatives. The annual meeting of the Global Forum for Health Research, held in parallel, also issued a statement calling for research to be used to improve equity in global health.

Dr Julio Frenk, Mexico's minister of health …