South-South cooperation in health: bringing in theory, politics, history, and social justice

Abstract

Since the mid-2000s, the practice of South-South cooperation in health (SSC) has attracted growing attention among policymakers, health and foreign affairs ministries, global health agencies, and scholars from a range of fields. But the South-South label elucidates little about the actual content of the cooperation and conflates the “where” with the “who, what, how, and why”. While there have been some attempts to theorize global health diplomacy and South-South cooperation generally, these efforts do not sufficiently distinguish among the different kinds of practices and political values that fall under the South-South rubric, ranging from economic and geopolitical interests to social justice forms of solidarity. In the spirit of deepening theoretical, historical, and social justice analyses of SSC, this article: (1) critically revisits international relations theories that seek to explain SSC, exploring Marxian and other heterodox theories ignored in the mainstream literature; (2) traces the historical provenance of a variety of forms of SSC; and (3) introduces the concept of social justice-oriented South-South.

Is it about the ‘where’ or the ‘how’? Comment onDefining global health as public health somewhere else

“…7 The existence of large diasporas and the emergence of globalisation disrupt national geographical continuities, and there is increasing support between countries within the same region (what is often termed 'South-South' cooperation). 8 Alternatively, an app for family planning designed in Silicon Valley, or the promotion of carbonated soft drinks worldwide can have profound effects on public health both within and across borders. Students from across the world train elsewhere and bring learning and practices back home.…”

Brazilian foreign policy for the Global South: The creation of the Centre of Excellence against Hunger

“…It found some scope for development within the sphere of foreign policy, the Brazilian government and the UN, counting on support of operators invested in the new foreign policy guidelines presented by the Lula administration. This decentralized foreign policy initiative might have positively influenced Brazil's international image and enhanced the country's contribution to overcoming underdevelopment in other nations, in line with South-South co-operation (SSC) oriented towards social justice (Birn et al, 2017). Once in contact with the WFP, the network became an international information agency and was able to expand the scope of its activities.…”

Is there a social justice variant of South–South health cooperation?: a scoping and critical literature review

“…We first seek both to define and differentiate this transformative approach from the generic form of SSC. We build upon a prior historical and theoretical exploration of the relationships between actors, the nature of cooperation activities and practices, and the diplomatic, political, and social dimensions of SSC experiences that generated a novel concept of social justiceoriented South-South cooperation (SJSSC) [16].…”

“…Based on our preliminary conceptualization, SJSSC presents a distinct variant of SSC converging on a mix of the following features [16]:…”