The intrinsic relationship between foreign policy and global health is addressed through “Health diplomacy”. Health diplomacy refers to communication, consensus-building, and negotiation processes that shape and manage the global policy environment for health and is an essential part of foreign policy. It is an approach to bring together multiple stakeholders across sectors, who share common goals to improve population health and further the concept of “health in all policies”. It aims to create a balance between using health to achieve foreign policy goals and vice-versa. The negotiation processes are not only conducted between diplomats representing Member States, but include other major players in the global arena; contributing to the multi-disciplinary nature of health diplomacy. As health moves beyond its purely technical realm to become a more critical element in foreign policy, new skill sets are needed to negotiate international agreements and treaties, and to maintain relations with a wide range of actors. Global health diplomacy focuses on those health issues that cross national boundaries and usually include a wide range of global actors. The relationship between health efforts and foreign policy interests has progressed in recent years. Over the past decade, the United Nations General Assembly has passed several resolutions on Global Health and Foreign Policy (A/RES/63/33 and A/RES/64/108 ) declaring health as an important policy issue on the international agenda (A/65/L.27 ). HEALTH DIPLOMACY IN THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN REGION WHO has identified the importance of active engagement of Member States in negotiations that are critical for health, as well as in discussions in many different regional and global forums. In response, WHO has been hosting an annual high-level seminar since 2012, featuring experts in regional issues, global health policy, and diplomacy to facilitate discussion, information exchange, and analysis regarding the linkages between health and foreign policy globally and in the Eastern Mediterranean Region. During the five seminars hosted to date, more than 200 senior government officials from ministries of health and foreign affairs, representatives of permanent missions at the United Nations in Geneva, parliamentarians, heads of diplomatic institutes and directors of national public health institutes and academia have benefited. WHO aims to continue this practice, focusing on contemporary health diplomacy concepts, key global health issues, with special emphasis on emerging public health issues, regional security, interaction between health and trade and sustainable development priorities. The main objectives of the Seminars were to:
• Discuss the latest global health issues that require full engagement of the whole of government, including foreign policy and legislature. • Strengthen capacity of representatives of Member States to understand, act upon and positively influence diplomatic outreach for public health issues of highest priority and relevance to the region. • Integrate modern concepts and approaches of health diplomacy within foreign policy platforms to address critical health challenges that are global in nature.
Retrieved from: 1.http://www.who.int/trade/events/UNGA_RESOLUTION_GHFP_63_33.pdf 2.http://www.un.org/en/ga/64/resolutions.shtml 3.http://ec.europa.eu/health/mental_health/docs/un_resolution_global_en.pdf