“The real breakthrough came when scientific evidence showed the negative effects of second-hand smoke and its effects on children.” Ilona kickbushThe Founding Director of the Center for Global Health at the Graduate Institute in Geneva, tells the host: Gary Aslanyan in the new episode of”global health matterspodcast. “These data and this evidence really made a big difference in starting negotiations.”
Thanks to this development, the Convention was finally adopted and became the first international treaty negotiated under the auspices of WHO. The agreement now includes 182 parties and covers over 90% of the world’s population.
According to Kickbusch, the treaty embodies an important example of how science and diplomacy can complement each other in achieving goals and driving change. . Experts discuss the role of science diplomacy in global health with Aslanyan. Aida Mencia RipleyVice-Rector of Research and Innovation, University of Iberoamericana, Dominican Republic.
Ripley shares that science diplomacy has been key to overcoming the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic in the Dominican Republic.
“We were able to use science diplomacy to build some bridges and provide some of the early data on COVID sequences for our country,” she recalls. “We are actually one of the first countries in the region to do this thanks to these international collaborations.”
Kickbush also said the hard evidence is important, with the pandemic clearly showing that many global health problems are influenced by ideology.
“Being able to come together and create a global consensus also means we have to overcome ideologies, and we need very good data,” she says. “Over the years, many of the international agreements, especially those that guarantee access to medicines for stigmatized groups, especially in issues related to sexual health in the broadest sense, have helped us to be sure. I can see that it was possible only because I had a strong science.”
Another key factor in building consensus is promoting trust in governments and institutions, two experts said.
“We are in a situation where trust in science and policy-making is not as strong as it was 10 or 20 years ago,” says Kickbush. “We really need to work on that trust. We need to work on health literacy. We need to work on the science literacy of both the public and policy makers and diplomats.”
Ripley emphasizes that it is essential to consider not only the hard sciences but also the context of each society in order to tackle health problems at the global level.
“At this point, global health is completely over-medicalized,” she points out. “I think some of the nuances that the social and behavioral sciences bring to the table are very important because we can understand people’s socio-economic and political contexts to make sure we meet them halfway. Because there is a need, like we did during the pandemic, we made a big change in their way of life.”
Listen to previous episodes of Global Health Matters on Health Policy Watch.
Image credit: TDRMore.
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