CSU 107/2011: EMERGING AND TRANSITIONING COUNTRIES’ ROLE IN GLOBAL HEALTH

Sunday, 27th of March 2011

EMERGING AND TRANSITIONING COUNTRIES’ ROLE IN GLOBAL HEALTH

JENNIFER PRAH RUGER, Ph.D.* AND NORA Y. NG, Ph.D.**

* 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. A previous

version of this paper, entitled “Public Health and Emerging Risks: Emerging Countries’

Responsibility and International Cooperation,” was presented at the High Level Workshop on

Development Assistance, 7-8 March 2007, European Investment Bank, Luxembourg. Thanks

go to participants at that meeting for their comments and to Betsy Rogers for her editing

assistance. This research was supported, in part, by the Institute for Sustainable Development

and International Relations and the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and

Area Studies.

** Research assistant to Professor Ruger.

Introduction below; full text is at http://law.slu.edu/healthlaw/journal/archives/Ruger_and_Ng_Article.pdf

I. INTRODUCTION

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.

1. Tony Halpin, Brazil, Russia, India and China Form Bloc to Challenge U.S. Global

Dominance, TIMES, June 17, 2009, at 33.