Foreign policy and global health diplomacy

Health has been an issue of diplomacy and foreign policy ever since the first International Sanitary Conference was held in Paris in 1851, bringing together diplomats and physicians from a dozen countries. Over 160 years ago. The aim of this symposium is to place health issues in developing countries in the context of recent developments in global health governance, geopolitics and diplomacy. The aim is to examine how health diplomacy, as it is expressed in the contemporary world, can be a dimension of international relations useful for improving the health of poor populations, and in what way, or how, foreign policy concerned with health could promote reconciliation, perhaps, between national interests and the universal aspirations of global health, at the forefront of which are equal access to health and equity, which we saw in the Chair's opening lecture as a "philosophical value of global health". For more information on the symposium, please download Professor Dominique Kerouedan's text (in the Documents and Media section).

The first day will focus on these topics in classic development aid contexts. The symposium will be opened by Laurent Fabius, Minister of Foreign Affairs, in the presence of John Scheid, Vice-President of the Assemblée des Professeurs du Collège de France. Our guest of honor is Henriette Diabaté, Grand Chancellor of Côte d'Ivoire, who will share with us her vision of women in Africa.

The first morning session will focus on the relationship between globalization, diplomacy and global health, and will be chaired by political scientist Professor Ghassan Salamé, former Minister of Culture in Lebanon and Director of Sciences Po's School of International Affairs. Africa will be represented by distinguished speakers from Bamako, Yaoundé and Abidjan, and by the Brussels-based Secretariat of African, Caribbean and Pacific States.

The first part of the afternoon will be chaired by Dr Gustavo Gonzalez Canali, representing France on the Diplomacy and Health Group of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Brazil, whose solidarity policy includes health diplomacy, has honored us by sending Professor Deisy Ventura from the University of Sao Paulo. We also have high hopes for Ilona Kickbush, a pioneer in the field, who heads lectures on global health governance and diplomacy at the Institute of Graduate Studies in Geneva.

The second part of the afternoon will be chaired by Dr François Décaillet, from the WHO Office in New Delhi (India), and will focus on research for health development, with an emphasis on access to medicines in developing countries and the role of manufacturers in emerging countries

Dominique Kerouedan

Global health. Strategic stakes, diplomatic games

" In the course of globalization, health has become a subject of foreign policy, international security and global governance. It is just one of the many fields that powers use to gain influence, prestige and power. This book reveals the content, masked by a discourse that appeals to the emotions, of health interventions that are increasingly determined by the interests of Western states and their pressure groups, as well as by the logics of multinational industries. The geopolitics of pharmaceuticals, for example, is taking hostage not only populations and patients, but also national decision-makers and the leaders of international institutions.

Bringing together researchers from Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and Europe, as well as diplomats and practitioners in the field, this book examines a variety of national situations from the angles of public health, international relations, sociology, political science, law and ethics. In particular, it shows how the discriminatory intervention of donors in the health sector is proving to be a real obstacle to the development of beneficiary countries and, despite the rhetoric, is increasing inequity. "

Kerouedan D. (dir.), Santé mondiale, Enjeu stratégique, jeux diplomatiques, Les presses de Sciences-Po, 2016, 300 p.