EQUALITY AND SOCIAL INCLUSION:
HEALTH
After Covid-19 exposed the frailties of global health structures, the rising influence of the Global South offers a transformational opportunity for change Redefining global health in a multipolar world
T he regime for global health developed by major donor countries and philanthropies after the end of the Cold War is not designed to respond to the major changes in today’s complex and multipolar world. After at least 7 million deaths worldwide from Covid-19 (according to official World Health Organization figures) and $82 trillion in damage to the global economy (calculated by Cambridge University), one might have thought that the will for joint global action among states would prevail. There was also a brief hope that the WHO would be significantly strengthened, not least through the negotiation of a pandemic agreement. But the massive investments required to strengthen health systems in the Global South have been neglected nationally and internationally for 30 years. The investment requirement for building pandemic structures alone is estimated to cost $10 billion each year, while meeting the health targets of the Sustainable Development Goals until 2030 is forecast to cost $134 billion annually. Most countries cannot manage this alone, and development aid or philanthropy cannot finance this. The many global crises are also shifting priorities away from health. FROM GLOBAL NORTH TO GLOBAL SOUTH But that does not mean that health cooperation among countries is stagnating – on the contrary. It is being Ilona Kickbusch , founding director, Global Health Centre, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies
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G20 BRAZIL: THE RIO SUMMIT — 2024
globalgovernanceproject.org
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