// ADVOCACY WORLD HEALTH SUMMIT
Building new bridges to overcome contradictions in global health
policymakers must address the fact that common principles that once under- pinned major global health advances are increasingly being challenged. • International cooperation as a strat- egy has become less popular, often regarded as a threat to national sovereignty. • International solidarity is increas- ingly perceived to drain public funds • Protecting the climate and invest- ing in health on a global scale are portrayed as threatening or even hindering national prosperity and economic development. These are false contradictions. They stem from a narrow analysis of an increasingly complex situation – omit- ting the fact that our habitat, the planet and to compete with national development and interests.
Global health stands at a crossroads of cooperation and retreat. The task ahead requires concerted efforts to build fair, transparent partnerships that transform contradictions into common ground
Axel Radlach Pries, President, World Health Summit F rom coffee breaks to side events and sessions, the conversations at this year’s World Health Summit (WHS) reflected the turbulence and profound transformations shattering official development aid and reshap- ing international and national activities to improve health globally. Long-held beliefs and approaches are changing rapidly, and it is becoming increasingly clear that the most vulnerable commu- nities and regions of the world will bear the heaviest and immediate burden. It is also clear that this development poses risks to all countries worldwide and
requires a fundamentally new way to interact, cooperate and address health challenges. Yet at the very moment when coopera- tion and greater commitments to health are required due to climate change and other global threats, more and more states are retreating from those responsibilities. This situation is a great challenge to high-level international gatherings such as COP30 and the G20 summit, which should serve as critical spaces for collective action for humani- ty’s most urgent challenges. In the current global environment,
116 // G20 SOUTH AFRICA: THE JOHANNESBURG SUMMIT 2025
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