Funnel 40/2, Inhalt - Fulbright-Kommission

24
NEWS & EVENTS
Health as Foreign Policy
Seth Berkley describes the International AIDS
Vaccine Initiative, a model for cross-border cooperation
in health issues.
THE FUNNEL • VOLUME 40 • NUMBER 2 • SUMMER 2004
130 experts from Germany, the United States,
and other European Countries meet in Berlin.
Infectious diseases such as AIDS, malaria,
or tuberculosis pose a new threat not only
to individual well-being and national health
systems but also to broader structures of
international cooperation and international
security. Health has become an issue with
significant economic, trade, and security
implications in today’s globalized world.
For these reasons, the German-American
Fulbright Commission initiated a conference
on “Health as Foreign Policy - a US-
German Dialogue on Governance and
Global Health.” More than 130 experts
from Europe and the United States met in
the German Foreign Office in Berlin on
November 20 and 21, 2003, to discuss conceptual
frameworks for these global threats
and appropriate policy responses.
Promoting health and fighting disease
not just at home, but also abroad, are increasingly
on national agendas. They have become
part of the deliberations on foreign policy
and of the development of civil society and
democracy. Health is at the center of the
poverty agenda, the debate on human rights
and social justice, and is a centerpiece of the
United Nations Millennium Development
Goals. Various state actors, as well as international
and non-governmental organizations
have tried to find answers to these challenges.
Whereas in the United States, health
is already seen as a major factor in the definition
of a foreign and security policy agenda,
this discussion is fairly new in the German
and, to some extent, the European context.
Government representatives such as
Alex Azar, General Counsel of the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services,
and Dr. Michael Hofmann, Director Gen-
eral of the German Ministry of Economic
Cooperation and Development, therefore,
engaged in a very fruitful dialogue on domestic
and international policy responses.
The conference brought together foreign
policy experts, microbiologists, medical doctors,
and representatives from the pharmaceutical
industry, the World Health Organization
and NGOs such as the International
AIDS Vaccine Initiative, whose president
and co-founder Seth Berkley described, during
one panel discussion, the worldwide
quest for an AIDS vaccine.
While differences will remain as to how
various national states respond to the challenges
posed by the idea of global health, conference
participants agreed that state actors,
non-governmental organizations, and private
corporations have to cooperate in order
to find appropriate solutions in the near
future.
The Berlin conference grew out of the
Fulbright New Century Scholar Program,
which in 2002 brought together an international
group of researchers that focused on
“Health in a Borderless World.” Professor
Ilona Kickbusch, the 2002 Fulbright New
Century Scholars’ leader served as an academic
advisor to the meeting in Germany.
The high caliber of speakers she attracted to
the conference was instrumental in securing
private financial support for the conference
as well. The American Council on Germany
also co-hosted the event and sponsored additional
speakers. This collaboration was important
to the success of the conference and
the introduction of new and innovative ideas
to the German and European academic and
political dialogue.