Global Health and Foreign Policy

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 124 Global health and foreign policy, published in 2011.

What other versions does this mandate have?

7 versions · 2009–2015

This is an older version — the most recent is A/RES/69/132

Year	Symbol	Title	Word length	Text similarity
2015	A/RES/69/132	Global health and foreign policy	2,545	19%Compare
2014	A/RES/68/98	Global health and foreign policy	2,252	19%Compare
2013	A/RES/67/81	Global health and foreign policy	2,393	20%Compare
2012	A/RES/66/115	Global health and foreign policy	1,992	16%Compare
2011	A/RES/65/95	Global health and foreign policy	1,791	18%Compare

What subjects does this mandate have?

14 subjects

Data Collection Disease Prevention Foreign Policy Governance Health Personnel Health Policy Health Services Institution Building International Cooperation Partnership Public Health Report Preparation Right to Education Training Programmes

What’s in this document?

24 operative paragraphs

Notes with appreciation the report of the Secretary-General¹⁴ and the recommendations contained therein;

¹⁴See A/65/399.

Calls for more attention to health as an important policy issue on the international agenda;

Encourages Member States to consider the close relationship between foreign policy and global health and to recognize that global health challenges require concerted and sustained efforts in order to further promote a global policy environment supportive of global health;

Recognizes that, despite some progress made, challenges in global health, including major inequities and vulnerabilities within and among countries and regions, still remain and demand persistent attention;

Acknowledges that progress in global health is dependent primarily on national policies and actions and on international cooperation and partnerships, which could help to respond to major global challenges and crises;

Underscores the urgency of strengthening health systems by improving basic infrastructures, human and technical resources and the provision of health facilities, and of ensuring the accessibility, affordability and quality of health-care services as well as sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation;

Stresses the importance of achieving the health-related Millennium Development Goals, especially with the objective of eradicating poverty and ensuring socio-economic development;

Underlines the importance of realizing the right of everyone to education as an integral part of a healthy society, and in this context reaffirms that access to primary education for all constitutes one of the most effective means to promote public health and basic sanitation and to prevent diseases;

Acknowledges that gender equality, the empowerment of women, the full enjoyment by women of all human rights and the eradication of poverty are essential to economic and social development;

Underlines the central role of the global partnership for development and the importance of Goal 8 in achieving the Millennium Development Goals, and recognizes that without substantial international support, several of the Goals are likely to be missed in many developing countries by 2015;

Reiterates that each country has primary responsibility for its own economic and social development and that the role of national policies, domestic resources and development strategies cannot be overemphasized;

Stresses the need to strengthen health systems so that they deliver equitable health outcomes as a basis for a comprehensive approach to achieving Millennium Development Goals 4, 5 and 6, underlining the need to build sustainable national health systems and strengthen national capacities through attention to, inter alia, service delivery, health systems financing, including appropriate budgetary allocations, the health workforce, health information systems, the procurement and distribution of medicines, vaccines and technologies, sexual and reproductive health care and political will in leadership and governance;

Acknowledges the need to further address the issue of governance for global health as health is increasingly being challenged by new realities of an interdependent world;

Acknowledges also the need to make the global health architecture more effective, efficient and responsive, in order to, inter alia, bring more coherence to the delivery of health outcomes and enhance health equity;

Reaffirms the central role of the United Nations system in meeting the challenges of global health in a changing environment and the need to enhance the visibility of health issues in the different United Nations forums;

Recognizes the leading role of the World Health Organization as the primary specialized agency for health, including its roles and functions with regard to health policy in accordance with its mandate;

Stresses the continued need for coordination and coherence at national and international levels to enhance the effectiveness of health initiatives and partnerships;

Urges Member States to continue to consider health issues in the formulation of foreign policy;

Encourages Member States, the United Nations system, academic institutions and networks to further increase their capacity for the training of diplomats and health officials, in particular those from developing countries, on global health and foreign policy, by developing best practices and guidelines for training and open-source information, and educational and training resources for this purpose;

Requests the Secretary-General, in close collaboration with the Director-General of the World Health Organization and with other relevant multilateral institutions, as appropriate, to give high priority to generating and collecting comparable and reliable data on health-worker migration, distribution and coverage within the framework of the World Health Organization Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel;9

Also requests the Secretary-General, in close collaboration with the Director-General of the World Health Organization, with the participation of relevant programmes, funds and specialized agencies of the United Nations system, and in consultation with Member States, to submit a report to the General Assembly at its sixty-sixth session, under the item entitled “Global health and foreign policy”, which, inter alia:

Reflects on ways to improve the coordination, coherence and effectiveness of governance for global health;

Discusses the role of the State and other stakeholders in improving the coordination, coherence and effectiveness of governance for global health;

Presents recommendations on enhancing the coordination of policies addressing the social determinants of health.

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

What other versions does this mandate have?

What subjects does this mandate have?

What’s in this document?

Table of contents