Symposium

Strengthening Global Health Governance: Defending the Public Interest and Holding Powerful Private Actors Accountable

The event explores the influence of powerful private actors in global health and discusses ways to enhance accountability and protect public interest.

Time
- Asia/Kuala Lumpur

The last four decades have seen a set of powerful private actors (PPAs) have ever greater impacts on health outcomes. Although private actors make positive contributions to society, there are concerns about their negative impacts on health and health inequalities. A growing body of literature on the commercial determinants of health, for example, points to the harms of aggressive marketing and supply of unhealthy commodities, the externalisation of environmental and social costs from commercial activities, and the ability of large oligopolistic trans-national corporations (TNCs) to gouge excessive profits at the expense of equitable access to medicines, vaccines and other technologies. 

The increasing financialisation of society has also seen private equity, hedge funds, investment banks, and private asset managers make incursions into the health sector in ways that are exploitative or harmful. Meanwhile, efforts to reverse the trend of widening inequalities and to prevent further damage to the planet are being hindered by PPAs who have vested interests in maintaining the status quo. 

At the same time, PPAs now assume ever greater levels of influence over policy-making and systems of governance through public-private partnerships and multi-stakeholder forums. In parallel, in viewing private finance capital as a solution to the problem of declining public budgets, private actors are also increasingly being invited to provide important public goods and services. Finally, the past few decades have also seen individuals with extreme wealth and large private foundations become powerful global actors in their own right. 

In November 2023, an expert group meeting convened by UNU-IIGH (see report here) acknowledged an important role for markets and private actors in society, but noted a lack of effective mechanisms by which to hold PPAs accountable, especially given the corresponding weakening of governmental agencies, inter-governmental organisations (IGOs), and other public institutions. The withdrawal of the United States from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and other multilateral institutions, as well as cuts made by the United States and other countries to their aid budgets, raises further new and urgent questions about the influence of PPAs in global health governance. 

With these developments in mind, UNU-IIGH and Third World Network have organised a one-day symposium to examine the influence, behaviour, and impact of PPAs across the global health system and to discuss what efforts are needed to mitigate their power and hold them more accountable.

Jš—¼š—¶š—» š˜š—µš—² š—¹š—¶š˜ƒš—²š˜€š˜š—æš—²š—®š—ŗ on the day: https://go.unu.edu/ElCNL 

Programme

0900 

 

 

 

 

 

0940 

 

 

Welcome 

Revati Phalkey (UNU-IIGH) 

 

Opening remarks

Chee Yoke Ling (TWN), Xiaomeng Shen (UNU), Catherine Boehme (WHO),  

 

Background to the Symposium

David McCoy (UNU-IIGH)

1000

Moderator: Goh Chien Yen (TWN) 

 

Inequality, neoliberalism and the world of perma- and poly-crisis

Ron Labonte (University of Ottawa and Peoples Health Movement)

Anita Gurumurthy (IT for Change)

Jasodhara Dasgupta (Independent) 

 

1100

Tea 

 

1130

Moderator: Goh Chien Yen (TWN) 

 

A new age of global governance 

Barbara Adams (Global Policy Watch)

Nicoletta Dentico (Society for International Development) 

 

1215

Moderator: Celine Tan (Warwick University) 

 

The driving power of finance and financialisation

Ben Hunter (University of Glasgow) and Ben Wood (Deakin University)

Abhay Shukla (Jan Swasthya Abhiyan) 

 

1300

Lunch 

 

1400

Moderator: Celine Tan (Warwick University) 

 

The corporate drivers of global warming, disease and illness

Monika Kosinska (WHO)

Sharon Friel (Australian National University) 

 

1445

Moderator: Gonzalo Berron 

 

Private power, public policy and politics

Katerini Storeng (University of Oslo)

Anna Marriott (Oxfam) 

 

1530

Tea 

 

1600

Moderator: Chee Yoke Ling and David McCoy 

 

Panel Discussion: Defining and correcting power imbalances and accountability deficits

Brid Brennan (Transnational Institute)

Gamze Turkelli (University of Antwerp)

Adam Moe Fejerskov (Danish Institute for International Studies)

Ming Xu (Peking University)

Akinbode Oluwafemi (Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa)

1730

Close 

 

  

Related content

News

Six Distinguished Leaders Appointed to the United Nations University Council

The newly appointed UNU Council members will serve six-year terms from 4 May 2025.

05 May 2025

Symposium

Rethinking global debt: reforming the international financial architecture

UNU-CPR experts joined the Helsinki Symposium to chart practical, politically viable solutions for a more equitable global financial system.

-