Reinventing global health in Africa and the developing world

The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the world’s vulnerabilities to health and economic ruin from outbreaks of disease. Moreover, the crisis has also revealed fundamental weaknesses and contradictions in global health. Despite progress toward improved health outcomes globally, many countries face a complex landscape of lofty ambitions in the form of political commitments to universal health coverage, human capital, and global health security. This state of affairs implies that investors in global health must navigate a minefield of uneven progress, great expectations, and denials of scientific evidence by entrenched interests.

With the pandemic far from over and the Global South, especially sub-Saharan Africa, still lacking the access to important tools to control the COVID-19 virus, the time is now to consider new ways in assuring that the Global South is not continuously left behind.

In his book, “Global Health in Practice: Investing Amidst Pandemics, Denial of Evidence, and Neo-dependency,” Dr. Olusoji Adeyi provides a review of concepts and cases in global health policy and practice. He posits that, contrary to popular discourse, the fundamental problem of global health lies not in neo-colonialism, but in neo-dependency of the Global South on the Global North. In clear and specific terms, it lays out a premise and pathways to fundamental changes in the power dynamics, accountability systems, ownership of policies, and priorities of foreign aid for health.

On, Thursday, February 3, the Brookings Africa Growth Initiative hosted Dr. Adeyi and other eminent experts in global health for a discussion of this new book and strategies for self-sufficiency in the health sector in the Global South.