I first became involved in global health issues when my friend John Wyn Owen of the Nuffield Trust asked me to lead the first UK programme on this topic in 1998, called Global Health: a local issue. We produced 17 papers on the subject and ran a national symposium. This led to the UK DH initiative - Health is Global, the first international conference on Global Health and Foreign Policy at Ditchley Park in 2004, a programme at the European Gastein Conference and eventually the establishment of Global Health Europe in Geneva. See the web site at http://graduateinstitute.ch/globalhealth .
This is a group of experts led by Professor Ilona Kickbusch, informally sharing ideas on global health at WHO HQ in Geneva. The Global Health Programme has developed many books, papers and training courses on aspects of global health policy and diplomacy. We developed a training programme for WHO Heads of Country Office in 2014 and I tutored this on-line course for 120 participants from whom I learnt a great deal.
I am sad to record that my good friend John Wyn Owen has died. It was his vision and foresight that brought UK and European attention to the issues raised by global health. He continued to champion efforts in Wales and Worldwide to engage health leaders at every level to address global health as a local issue. He also helped Medsin, as it was then called, to organise their first conference on global health in Cardiff, 2001. << New image with text >>
IFMSA and other students prepare for their advocacy at the World Health Assembly. The training materials presented here were intended to provide a basic understanding of Global Health Diplomacy and Advocacy, and exercises panels of experts and their own group work helped them to prepare to make their case at the WHA.
Other Resources
See the next page (under the picture top left) for more training resources on globalisation and health and local negotiations for health. Further resources on aspects of globalization and health can be found at www.globalhealtheurope.org where I worked on a series of policy papers and an extended glossary with my young friend David Gleicher. Also see the paper I published with my colleague professor Ilona Kickbush "The European Policy Glossary on Global Health" You should also look at the Training Toolkits for SfGH.