Global health at the turning point: is solidarity dead?

A greater number of people than ever before have access to basic health services, child mortality has long been in decline, and global life expectancy continues to rise. At the same time, increasing social inequality, conflicts, climate risks, and prolonged humanitarian crises are placing growing pressure on health systems. Severe aid cuts and heavy debt burdens limit countries’ ability to invest in health, further weakening already strained health systems and public health efforts. Abrupt and deep funding cuts are worsening access to lifesaving medicines and vaccines, highlighting the fragility of progress over recent decades. With the “Turning Point Project,” (prosjekt Vendepunkt) the government aims to set a new direction for Norwegian development policy which has major implication for global health.
Norway has long played an important role in global health, a role we can and should continue to take. Against a backdrop of crises and geopolitical shifts, we now also face an opportunity to strengthen global health, with health system strengthening at the core. This discussion will explore today’s key global public health challenges and discuss the role Norway should play, focusing on what health system strengthening means in practice and the evolving role of multilateral institutions including WHO to explore how Norway can contribute most effectively. We will also examine whether national interests and global health security can be aligned with the fundamental goals of development aid of poverty reduction, humanitarian values, and equitable access to care. Should health cooperation move, in the spirit of our age, toward bilateral, transactional arrangements, or be safeguarded through investing in multilateral institutions and a commitment to solidarity? Insights from the discussion will be synthesized and used actively in the Turning Point Project and the forthcoming White Paper on the future of Norwegian development policy.