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Advance global health
Multilateralism Pandemic Response Digitalization
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was adopted by all United Nations member states in 2015. Its health-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) particularly SDG 3 aim to “ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all”73. National and EU efforts to implement “health in all policies” therefore naturally contribute to the global sustainability agenda. Bilateral cooperation can complement and support the global agenda. It enables the countries to not only support one another’s policies and improve health for the EU and China (whose populations combined account for about 1.8 billion people - one quarter of the world’s population), but also act in alliance to drive minilateralism, plurilateralism, and multilateralism. The World Health Organization’s commitments and activities, and its agenda-setting in the G20, are therefore key to achieving advances in areas such as the strengthening of health
systems. These formats provide the right combination of health system expertise and financing. And they involve issues such as securing free trade, resilient international supply chains, and the promotion of innovation and science. In the same line of thought, promoting and facilitating formats such as Business20 and Science2074 is also key to strengthening valuable global networks and thinking as important contributors of expert knowledge. Furthermore, the WTO is also an important forum thanks to its customs liberalization and trade facilitation capacities and agreements. At the multinational level too, ”health in all policies” should therefore be an obligatory requirement that is viewed as essential. Germany, the EU, and China have all signaled willingness to assume global responsibility for strengthening 74
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United Nations, Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages, <https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/health/> (accessed on 17.07.2020).
G20, Improving Global Health – Strategies and Tools to Combat Communicable And Non-Communicable Diseases, <https://royalsociety.org/-/media/aboutus/international/g-science-statements/2017-improving-global-health. PDF?la=en-GB&hash=BC6B2343D6133377920849DCDACED01E>.
