International Journal of Health Policy and Management

International Journal of Health Policy and Management

History, Structure and Agency in Global Health Governance; Comment on “Global Health Governance Challenges 2016 – Are We Ready?”

Document Type : Commentary

Authors
Stephen Gill 1
Solomon R. Benatar 2, 3
1 Department of Political Science, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada
2 University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
3 Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
10.15171/ijhpm.2016.119
Abstract
Ilona Kickbusch’s thought provoking editorial is criticized in this commentary, partly because she fails to refer to previous critical work on the global conditions and policies that sustain inequality, poverty, poor health and damage to the biosphere and, as a result, she misreads global power and elides consideration of the fundamental historical structures of political and material power that shape agency in global health governance. We also doubt that global health can be improved through structures and processes of multilateralism that are premised on the continued reproduction of the ecologically myopic and socially unsustainable market civilization model of capitalist development that currently prevails in the world economy. This model drives net financial flows from poor to rich countries and from the poor to the affluent and super wealthy individuals. By contrast, we suggest that significant progress in global health requires a profound and socially just restructuring of global power, greater global solidarity and the “development of sustainability.”
Keywords
Political Power
Structure
Agency
Global Health Governance
Subjects
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International Journal of Health Policy and Management
Volume 6, Issue 4
2017
Pages 237-241

  • Received Date 29 July 2016
  • Revised Date 29 August 2016
  • Accepted Date 20 August 2016
  • First Published Date 01 April 2017
  • Published Date 01 April 2017