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Notes from Ilona (cont.)
Global Health incorporates a historical perspective:
global epidemics have ravaged societies in the past,
there have been other periods of globalization in the
world’s history and for centuries countries have
crafted international agreements and institutions to
protect the health of their populations and (by proxy)
their economies. With this in mind Global Health explores
how at the beginning of the 21st century changing economic,
political and social realities lead to a new quality
of impact and necessitate new types of responses along
two dimensions:
- First, Global Health contributes to the understanding
of the extent to which the transfer of health risks
changes in nature, direction and impact due to the
increased speed, reduced distance and cultural transfer
brought about by modern means of transport and communication
as well as new forms of economic dependence and interdependence.
Not only can infectious disease travel more rapidly
than ever before, but so can harmful lifestyles, pollution,
toxic substances and unsafe goods and products.
- Second, Global Health contributes to the development
of strategies that counteract epidemiological polarization
and aim to achieve a balance between supportive
global mechanisms and decentralized approaches.
As a priority this includes building the capacity
of the developing world to govern health in the
new global context as well as strengthening the
local response to the new social, behavioral, environmental
or biological risks to health such as the global
HIV/AIDS epidemic, urban violence or bioterrorist
threats.
While technical solutions exist for many of the
most pressing global health problems, closing the
global health gap will require massive political
and financial commitment in both developed and developing
countries as well as a reorientation in policy and
strategy. Indeed the very fact that solutions exist
but are not accessible to the poorest is one of
the key driving forces of the global health agenda.
This entails resolving the participatory gap in
setting global health priorities, the operational
gap in building efficient and sustainable public
health responses and the accountability gap in addressing
the health needs of the poorest at the local and
the global level. Strategic responses give priority
to increasing the capacity of all actors to work
together as partners to produce better health outcomes
and need to include:
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breaking down barriers between policy sectors such
as foreign and domestic policy and including health
in the security, foreign relations and economic
development agenda, and
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developing inclusive systems of health governance
that take into account the changing role of nation
states and international organizations as well as
the dense network of private sector and non-governmental
actors in the health arena, as well as the dynamics
between local and global responses.
Finally Global Health explores the emerging value
base and the new agendas and relationships that
emerge when health becomes an essential component
and expression of global citizenship. In doing so
it can build on a growing awareness that health
is a valuable resource, a basic human right and
a global public good that needs to be protected
and promoted by the global community.
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| NCS Scholars, Midterm Meeting, Mexico. |
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NCS Scholars Lori Leonard and Seggane Musisi during first Global Health Summer Course Meeting.
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| Conferences & Workshops Calendar |
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