Uploaded October 2024 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
This panel will aim to look at global health within the G7 and G20 from a macro perspective and assess how disruptions to healthcare from variables such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), climate change, and geopolitical turmoil will increasingly put global health diplomacy to the test and make health financing even more challenging for the long-term. Initially created and classified as an economic block, the G20 nears completion of their first full round of Presidency rotations. A 20-year Anniversary is a milestone that merits reflection on the group’s evolving role in health diplomacy.
The G20 currently has two main health bodies: the Health Working Group (HWG, created in 2014 by the German Presidency) and the Joint Finance and Health Task Force (JFHTF, created in 2021 by the Italian Presidency). During the G20 Presidency in 2017, Germany set the precedence in elevating and placing health as a regular item on the agendas and discussions of the G20, just to recall some of the major strides made by the G7 and G20 groups in placing health higher on the international stage.
While discussions in the immediate post COVID-19 era have been challenging and politicized, it is striking the efforts that countries and stakeholders have made to try to break siloes and work together to mend trust in multilateralism and strengthen cohesiveness in global health diplomacy over the last two decades. Faced now with a multi-crisis world, sustaining prioritization of health for the future can be ever more challenging, yet all the more necessary.
What key lessons for health can we draw from the last two decades of G7/G20? And how do we keep health a core economic priority for the next two? With over 70 elections worldwide in 2024, the political constellations are visibly shifting. What has the G20 and G7 achieved in global health in this geopolitically challenging year of 2024? What can we expect from the G20 Presidency in South Africa and G7 Presidency in Canada next year?
This panel will aim to look at global health within the G7 and G20 from a macro perspective and assess how disruptions to healthcare from variables such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), climate change, and geopolitical turmoil will increasingly put global health diplomacy to the test and make health financing even more challenging for the long-term. Initially created and classified as an economic block, the G20 nears completion of their first full round of Presidency rotations. A 20-year Anniversary is a milestone that merits reflection on the group’s evolving role in health diplomacy.
The G20 currently has two main health bodies: the Health Working Group (HWG, created in 2014 by the German Presidency) and the Joint Finance and Health Task Force (JFHTF, created in 2021 by the Italian Presidency). During the G20 Presidency in 2017, Germany set the precedence in elevating and placing health as a regular item on the agendas and discussions of the G20, just to recall some of the major strides made by the G7 and G20 groups in placing health higher on the international stage.
While discussions in the immediate post COVID-19 era have been challenging and politicized, it is striking the efforts that countries and stakeholders have made to try to break siloes and work together to mend trust in multilateralism and strengthen cohesiveness in global health diplomacy over the last two decades. Faced now with a multi-crisis world, sustaining prioritization of health for the future can be ever more challenging, yet all the more necessary.
What key lessons for health can we draw from the last two decades of G7/G20? And how do we keep health a core economic priority for the next two? With over 70 elections worldwide in 2024, the political constellations are visibly shifting. What has the G20 and G7 achieved in global health in this geopolitically challenging year of 2024? What can we expect from the G20 Presidency in South Africa and G7 Presidency in Canada next year?
