EuroHealthNet responds to the consultation on the EU Global Health Strategy
EuroHealthNet has responded to the EU Global Health Strategy. The strategy will address factors affecting health to enable the EU to better tackle health inequalities and fend off global threats, all based on its commitments to human rights and health equity. EuroHealthNet recommends that, for the strategy to be successful:
- The EU should closely tie its global health strategy to other EU policies with direct relevance to global health, including trade policy, environmental policy (e.g., climate change) and food and agricultural policy;
- Europe must lead by example in many areas of public health (e.g., universal access to health care, digitalisation, addressing physical and mental health inequalities, gender equality and children’s rights), given the significant resources it has in relation to many other world regions;
- Ensure the alignment of the global health strategy with the European Programme of Work 2020-2025, to support multilateralism with WHO at the centre. In line with the WHO Europe Regional Director’s call for a ‘dual-track’ approach, the global health strategy should support adequate emergency response and preparedness, while also supporting sufficient investment in equitable, every day, essential health programmes and services;
- Tools such as the European Semester (with its links to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) and Recovery and Resilience Plans (RRP’s)) should be utilised to enhance and strengthen coordination between Member States at global, national and regional level.
EuroHealthNet outlines how the EU needs to be more active in defining the overarching global health architecture in an often ‘turbulent’ geopolitical environment. The EU must advocate that the priorities of the global health strategy ‘guide’ the political priorities (and financing priorities) of international governance structures (e.g., the G7/G20). It must also encourage a shift from traditional biomedical approaches to health to those which incorporate the impacts of and policy responses needed to address the many global challenges (e.g., rising cost of living, humanitarian crises) we are facing today.
Find the full consultation response here.