No country can tackle health challenges alone

“Many of the health threats we face do not respect national borders. This makes everyone more vulnerable. No country can reduce this vulnerability on its own. Unless we focus on how foreign policy affects people’s health and security, there is a risk that our efforts will weaken, rather than strengthen, the capacity of individual countries to overcome these challenges,” said Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs Jonas Gahr Støre at the launch of the Foreign Policy and Global Health Initiative in New York on Thursday 27 September.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs and the French Minister of Foreign and European Affairs, together with the foreign ministers of Brazil, Indonesia, Senegal, South Africa and Thailand, gathered some 20 of their colleagues to discuss health and foreign policy at the launch event, which took place at the UN.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also attended the launch. In his address to the 27 foreign ministers, he stated that efforts to protect global public health cannot be left solely to health ministries.

“[Y]ou have a critical role to play in raising the profile of global public health. You can help achieve the cultural shift needed to include a health perspective in all multilateral, regional or bilateral arenas. You can help provide the impetus needed to reach the health Millennium Development Goals, and help build for a more secure world for all,” he told the assembled foreign ministers.

The goal of the Foreign Policy and Global Health Initiative is to put public health on the foreign policy agenda. Together, the participating countries will build new alliances and forms of cooperation based on the common platform of public health security. Efforts in this area are also intended to highlight the consequences of policies that undermine public health security.

“In order to overcome these challenges, we need to create new alliances and use foreign policy as a tool,” said Mr Støre.