Global Public Goods For Health Research Articles

Beware the Kindleberger Trap in Global Health Governance

The Covid-19 pandemic is both a public health crisis and a stress test for global health governance. Effective health governance hinges on the provision of global public goods for health. Generally, the hegemon underwrites the operation and stability of the global public health architecture by ensuring the sustained supply of global public goods for health. But when the hegemon is unable or unwilling to shoulder this responsibility, global health governance may run the risk of falling into a Kindleberger Trap. The leadership vacuum that is opening up amid the coronavirus pandemic is accelerating the process. At present, China should adopt a three-pronged approach to promote bilateral health cooperation with leading countries like the United States, strengthen regional institution-building with ASEAN, South Korea, Japan, and Belt and Road countries, and improve the performance, credibility, and integrity of global organizations like the WHO and G-20. The Kindleberger Trap in global health governance can be overcome by adapting regional health coordination to make it more agile and effective.

Aligning Multilateral Support for Global Public Goods for Health Under the Global Action Plan

Twelve multilateral health and development organizations have signed on to a joint Global Action Plan for Healthy Lives and Well-being for All (the Global Action Plan). The Global Action Plan includes a call for signatory organizations to align efforts to strengthen the provision of global public goods (GPGs) for health. In this paper, we examined multilateral support for GPGs for health, focusing on the four largest multilateral health organizations — Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance; the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; the World Bank; and the World Health Organization. Our analysis aimed to understand how these organizations define GPGs for health and support such goods. Taking a cross-cutting view of the four organizations, it also aimed to lay out the steps these organizations could take to align their support for GPGs for health to deliver on the Global Action Plan. To conduct this analysis, we conducted a desk-based review including relevant academic and grey literature, strategy and finance documents, and grants and projects databases. We also conducted 46 key informant interviews with senior leadership among these organizations as well as individuals from think tanks and academia who have expertise in GPGs for health and/or our multilateral agencies of focus. Overall, we found that these four organizations lack an explicit GPGs for health strategy and they do not use a common definition of GPGs for health. All four are supporting GPGs for health in some form, through a variety of mechanisms, and it would be valuable to assess which of these are working the most effectively. A long-term, sustained financing mechanism for GPGs for health, and an overarching governance mechanism, will ultimately be needed.

Global public goods for health: weaknesses and opportunities in the global health system.

Since at least the 1990s, there has been growing recognition that societies need global public goods (GPGs) in order to protect and promote public health. While the term GPG is sometimes used loosely to denote that which is 'good' for the global public, we restrict our use of the term to its technical definition (goods that are non-excludable and non-rival in consumption) for its useful analytical clarity. Examples of important GPGs for health include standards and guidelines, research on the causes and treatment of disease, and comparative evidence and analysis. While institutions for providing public goods are relatively well developed at the national level - being clearly recognized as a responsibility of sovereign states - institutional arrangements to do so remain fragmented and thin at the global level. For example, the World Health Organization, mandated to provide many GPGs, is not appropriately financed to do so. Three steps are needed to better govern the financing and provision of GPGs for health: first, improved data to develop a clearer picture of how much money is currently going to providing which types of GPGs; second, a legitimate global political process to decide upon priority missing GPGs, followed by estimates of total amounts needed; and third, financing streams for GPGs from governments and private sources, to be channeled through new or existing institutions. Financing should go toward fully financing some GPGs, complementing or supplementing existing national or international financing for others, or deploying funds to make potential GPGs less 'excludable' by putting them into the public domain. As globalization deepens the degree of interdependence between countries and as formerly low-income economies advance, there may be less relative need for development assistance to meet basic health care needs, and greater relative need to finance GPGs. Strengthening global arrangements for GPGs today is a worthy investment for improved global health in the years to come.

Towards a coherent global framework for health financing: recommendations and recent developments.

The articles in this special issue have demonstrated how unprecedented transitions have come with both challenges and opportunities for health financing. Against the background of these challenges and opportunities, the Working Group on Health Financing at the Chatham House Centre on Global Health Security laid out, in 2014, a set of policy responses encapsulated in 20 recommendations for how to make progress towards a coherent global framework for health financing. These recommendations pertain to domestic financing of national health systems, global public goods for health, external financing for national health systems and the cross-cutting issues of accountability and agreement on a new global framework. Since the Working Group concluded its work, multiple events have reinforced the group's recommendations. Among these are the agreement on the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals, the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa and the release of the Panama Papers. These events also represent new stepping stones towards a new global framework.

A Game Change in Global Health: The Best Is Yet to Come.

Health will continue to gather strength as a global public domain if it links itself strategically with other transnational agendas and strengthens its political ability to produce global public goods for health. Three new political spaces offer opportunities to take the global health agenda a significant step forward: the emerging new development paradigm, the post-2015 debates at the United Nations and the dynamics created through the increasing trans-border health challenges the World Health Organization (WHO) must deal with under conditions of globalization. Presently there are concerns whether the major initiatives that have boosted global health in the last 20 years will continue to grow and attract sufficient funding. But the more pertinent question is whether they are still suited to address the major concerns global health faces between now and 2030. In addition many of the global health challenges can only be addressed through actions in sectors other than health and by facing the inherently political nature of health as well as strong opposition from parts of the private sector. A well-financed and rules based governance system — adapted to complex multilateralism — is needed to manage, complement and integrate the many issue-based initiatives. The next era of global health will be judged by its political capacity to ensure global health security, build universal health coverage, address the commercial determinants of non-communicable diseases and reduce global health inequalities. This will require a focus on producing global public goods for health (GPGH) through strong international organizations, in particular the WHO, supported by governments who have the political will and the institutional capacity to practice smart sovereignty, reach beyond the heath sector and engage with non-state actors.

European Public Health News * EUPHA president's column * EUPHA office news * Message from the WHO Regional Director for Europe: Embarking on Developing the New European Health Policy--Health 2020 * European Commission, DG Health and Consumers * Public Health and Welfare - Welfare Development and Health, 10-12 November 2011, the Bella Centre, Copenhagen, Denmark

This first European public health news of 2011 provides information on networking, capacity and knowledge building and the future of European public health. All contributors, EUPHA, WHO/EURO and DG Sanco, present new activities aimed at encouraging an ‘European public health movement’ where governmental organizations, non-governmental organizations and individual public health professionals work together to further public health in Europe. As Ghandi already said: ‘you must be the change you wish to see’. Wishing you all a good start to a collaborative year. # EUPHA president’s column {#article-title-2} 2011 will be an important year for Public Health and for EUPHA. For Public Health because although the human race has been always subjected to global forces throughout its existence, many of the global forces that are now shaping our destiny, such as climate change, the emergence of new infectious agents or the consequences of financial crisis, are different as they are to a considerable extent of our own making. The implication of this is that we have it in our power to do something about them. For EUPHA, if we are to respond to these threats, then we must develop effective global responses. The most important of these is knowledge. Knowledge allows us to understand the often complex pathways by which health or disease arises, looking beyond the immediate causes to underlying factors, such as the reasons why some people live in poverty or are exposed to conflict. It also enables us to understand what can be done to counteract these threats. I hope that EUPHA will play a crucial role in calling upon the governments of Europe to place a higher priority on the global threats to the future health of humanity, investing in the global public goods for health that will enable us to respond effectively to them. In particular, we should focus on the …

Making sense of the global economy: 10 resources for health promoters

Population health is shaped by more than local or national influences-the global matters. Health promotion practitioners and researchers increasingly are challenged to engage with upstream factors related to the global economy, such as global prescriptions for national macroeconomic policies, debt relief and international trade. This paper identifies 10 books (A Brief History of Neoliberalism, Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism, The World is Not Flat: Inequality and Injustice in Our Global Economy, Globalization and its Discontents, The Debt Threat: How Debt is Destroying the Developing World, Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy, A Race Against Time, Globalization and Health: An Introduction, Global Public Goods for Health: Health Economics and Public Health Perspectives, Trade and Health: Seeking Common Ground) and several key reports that we found to be particularly useful for understanding the global economy's effects on people's health. We draw attention to issues helpful in understanding the present global financial crisis.

Book Review: Global public goods for health

Book Review: Global public goods for health

International Health Regulations (2005)

International Health Regulations (2005)

International Health: Five Reasons Why Canadians Should Get Involved

1. Global Health Affects the Health of Canadians A person can fly to Canada from almost anywhere in less time than it takes for most diseases to show symptoms. The health of Canadians is increasingly determined by the health of people in other countries. Infectious diseases that originate elsewhere are commonly managed in Canada. For example, an epidemic of Cryptococcus neoformans variant gattii unfolded in 2001 on Vancouver Island. This new fungal pathogen, possibly imported via eucalyptus trees from Australia, has seriously affected the health of individual Canadians. Other examples managed by the BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC) include cutaneous anthrax from imported goatskins and Cyclospora gastroenteritis from Thai basil. More recently, the dramatic emergence and rapid global spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) to Canada and elsewhere have underscored this reality. The ease of travel contributes to our shrinking world. Thousands of tourists, immigrants and business people arrive in Canada every week and Canadians themselves travel the globe. It is not surprising that two thirds of tuberculosis cases in BC are identified in recent immigrants. The global village predicted by Marshall McLuhan has arrived. There is a temptation to shield ourselves from the effects of immigration and globalization by looking inward. But we cannot safeguard our health by closing our borders or ignoring the health concerns of those less fortunate. Controlling communicable diseases is one of several ‘global public goods for health’ along with cleaner air and reversing global warming. These issues require collective action on a global scale from which all countries benefit.