A NEW GLOBAL HEALTH ORDER 3.4 G20 and G7 convergence key for a new global health order By Hatice Beton, G20 and G7 Health and executive director, Development Partnership
I n the past three years the world has been grappling with the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic, an ongoing war in Europe, renewed migration flows putting vulnerable communities in distress
coordination, for international rules and norms to prove relevant, they cannot merely be affirmed by joint declarations. As Henry
Kissinger says, they must be fostered by common conviction. That conviction must
and natural disasters increasingly affected by climate change. These developments are imposing severe
be strengthened by convergence within and between the G20 and G7 and by concrete, impact-driven
inflationary pressures and economic burdens on our societies. Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 seems a distant reverie. At the heart of these challenges, we have the G20 and G7, originally created for international economic cooperation but over the years widening their mandates to include global health as a determinant of economic growth, social integrity and well-being.
initiatives that last within the cycles of the past, current and
incoming presidencies, if not longer, as current and future challenges do not respect borders. Health has featured higher on G20 and G7 agendas
since the G7 health ministers began meeting annually in 2015 and G20 ministers in 2017. Common challenges including the need to prepare for future pandemics, develop a One Health approach, tackle antimicrobial resistance and promote universal health coverage featured early. But Covid-19 triggered a new recognition of the impact of global health on all areas of daily life. Each crisis has a different cause, but the common feature is the systemic underappreciation of risk – and the same applies to health. Despite the G20 health ministers’ pandemic simulation exercise in 2017, the reactive approach to Covid-19 has cost $13.8 trillion in gross domestic product, about five times more than the Chernobyl disaster. The tremendous unity and collaboration during the Covid-19 pandemic helped supply the world
G20 AND G7 ZEITENWENDE Both the G20 and the G7 were born of geopolitical and financial crises. The G20 at the finance ministers’ level was created following the Asian financial crisis in 1999 and G7 leaders first met in 1975 as a direct result of the 1973 oil crisis. With widening mandates, the G20 and G7 have become all-inclusive platforms for policy coordination and leverage across policymakers and stakeholders from the public and private sectors. This trend has led to a plethora of communiqués with little convergence between the two forums. While we should appreciate multilayered and inclusive policy
The responsibility of defining future health and non-health priorities falls into the hands of our leaders, and policymakers must consider the impacts of the initiatives and programmes they support – and how they inform one another
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Health: A Political Choice – From Fragmentation to Integration
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