A view from the South: Brazil and Global health

Since at least the colonial era, the idea of ‘international health’ has been shaped by a Western-centric worldview. Contemporary practices of global health governance are the latest iteration of a long-standing tendency to privilege the interests of powerful nations and actors in the North. The skewing of global health policies away from the views and experiences of the Global South is arguably one of the ideational factors behind the persistence of staggering inequalities in global health.

Could global health be imagined differently? What lessons that can be drawn from the experience of countries and actors in the Global South? This roundtable will seek to answer these questions by focusing on the case of Brazil.

The roundtable brings together three experts in Brazilian health policy.

Clarice Mota (Federal University of Bahia) will examine the challenges faced by Brazil in trying to address health inequalities, which cannot be explained purely in terms of lower income and poverty levels. Her presentation will argue for the importance of investigating racism and its impact on health, as well as the need for implementing reparatory policies. The hypothesis is that tackling racism and racial discrimination is important to promote health equity in the direction of justice and democracy.

Fernanda Perez (University of Sao Paulo) will address the central role that health now plays in Brazilian foreign policy. South America and Africa have been identified as strategic by the Brazilian government, and many cooperation projects with the Union of South-American Nations and with Portuguese-speaking African countries were developed on the issue.

Rosana Curzel (Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro) will speak about the trajectory of the AIDS epidemic in Brazil, highlighting the spatial dissemination of the AIDS incidence rates between 2000 and 2014. Changes in AIDS’s incidence rates underscore the importance of taking into account social determinants of health and regional disparities when implementing programs.