Wednesday, January 19, 2011

[EQ] Emerging and Transitioning Countries' Role in Global Health

Emerging and Transitioning Countries' Role in Global Health

Jennifer Prah Ruger, Associate Professor at Yale University at the Schools of Public Health, Medicine, and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and Adjunct faculty at the Law School.
and Nora Y. Ng, Research assistant
Saint Louis University Journal of Health Law & Policy, 2010; 3:253-289

Available online PDF [38p.] at: http://bit.ly/hRee4e


“…..Global health scholarship has failed to adequately consider the “BRIC” cluster of nations—Brazil, Russia, India and China—particularly in the aggregate. An article search with the keywords “BRIC” and “public health” yields just one publication. But these countries have a unique role to play in the global health enterprise by addressing global health problems as they build their own health systems and help developing countries improve their populations’ health.

Moreover, the BRIC nations are becoming increasingly important components of the global health architecture, individually as nations and collectively as a nexus of influence. In June 2009, the countries held the first-ever BRIC summit in Yekaterinburg, Russia, debuting as a policy consultation and coordination group.1

What these countries collectively have to offer in the quest to improve global health merits attention. This article focuses on the role of emerging and transitioning countries as actors in
(1) providing financial assistance to lower-income countries;
(2) supplying medical goods and services to the developing world;
(3) giving technical assistance;
(4) improving access to medicines and intellectual property;
(5) modeling effective health-sector framework-building to less developed countries;
(6) delivering object lessons learned from the health and development process;
(7) helping lower-income countries grow their economies and reduce poverty;
(8) taking a significant role in global health governance; and
(9) bolstering the link between health and foreign policy.

For all their growing power and potential, however, they are still emerging and transforming countries with their own daunting and persisting health challenges that require continuing assistance from the global health community….”

“…..This article describes the roles that emerging countries play in global health, as the givers and recipients of aid. It outlines the types of assistance emerging countries can render to less developed states, as well as the sort of help emerging countries still need from the global health community. We also contemplate the effect of their participation in global health governance and their influence on health and foreign policy. Emerging countries—especially the incipient world powers Brazil, Russia, India, and China—are in an interesting position.

Their still-transforming economies and health systems connect them directly to the concerns of the developing world, while their growing economic and political clout give them a place at the table with industrialized countries and a more powerful voice in global affairs. The emergence of the BRIC countries as global health actors may direct greater attention to the needs and perspectives of developing countries…..”

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