This year's lectures by the "Knowledge against poverty" Chair at the Collège de France focus on the health issues facing populations in developing countries, as they drive political debate in today's world. The notion of "world health" refers here to the contours of "global health", where the health challenges of the 21st century, such as diseases, dysfunctional health systems, maternal and infant mortality, pandemic risks, unequal access to care and medicines, shortages of healthcare providers and funding, and epidemiological transitions, to name but a few, accelerated against a backdrop of globalization, unprecedented demographic growth in Africa, and the international financial crisis, are characterized by their scale rather than their location. International health, which has focused on the health situation and healthcare provision in poor countries over the last fifty years, and which in French-speaking circles we have called "santé et développement" (health and development), is becoming global in scope as the complexity of situations and their determinants (including political instabilities), as well as of response strategies, can only be envisaged collectively. The decade that has elapsed since the Millennium Development Goals were set, and the deadline for achieving them is now approaching (2015), has seen a transformation in the global governance of health, between States, United Nations agencies, new aid funding bodies and the participation of private players, such as the pharmaceutical industry and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. We'll see how the geopolitical stakes of the multipolar world taking shape between the Americas, Europe and Asia, where the balance is shifting given the emerging economies in Brazil, China and India, permeate the new governance of development aid in favor of health, a subject on the agenda of the G8, G20 and United Nations summits, as well as the diplomatic services of the United States, which announced in July 2012 the creation within the Obama administration of the State Department's "Office of Global Health Diplomacy".
What's more, health has become a subject of geopolitics between states, and an instrument of influence for some. These analyses are of interest to us if our thinking leads us to investigate how and in what way these geopolitical exchanges and influences, and the new governance in which they take place, actually contribute to improving the health situation of populations in the South, through existing development aid institutions, or new initiatives stemming from the new geopolitics of "global" health. The main aim of the Chair's activities is therefore to promote and publicize the thinking, knowledge and work of researchers and practitioners in the countries concerned - the poorest in the world, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa - and to facilitate dialogue and the sharing of experience and knowledge between players, scientists and politicians.