ONLINE EVENT: Deepening Cooperation and Coordination on Health Policy in the Americas

The Covid-19 pandemic has laid bare fundamental weaknesses in political leadership, coordination, and health policy integration in the Western Hemisphere. The current geopolitical divides undermined the few mechanisms that were in place for effective cooperation on health governance.

Although there is precedent for countries in the region to collaborate on health policy, responses to the Covid-19 shock have been largely unilateral. This led to a perverse competition to procure critical medical goods, including personal protective equipment (PPE) and ventilators. While the marketplace for most of these and other vital supplies has stabilized, there is still a risk that these patterns will prevail and impact the access to and exchange of knowledge on important issues such as effective medicines, clinical trials, and equitable access to vaccines. The post-pandemic recovery in the hemisphere would greatly benefit from coordination and cooperation, both between and within countries.

• Why have countries in the Americas become the epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic?
• How can countries coordinate and cooperate to prevent this from happening in the future?  

To address these and other issues, the Inter-American Dialogue convened a task force of experts to analyze and identify actionable recommendations to improve cooperation and coordination in health policies in the Western Hemisphere. Please join us for the launch of the report “Deepening Cooperation and Coordination on Health Policy in the Americas” presented by task force co-chairs, Helene Gayle and Julio Frenk.

Follow this event on Twitter at #HealthPolicyAmericas and @The_Dialogue. 

We invite participants to submit questions using the Q&A function in Zoom OR to email questions to meetings@thedialogue.org.  

Please note that this conversation will be held in English. Simultaneous interpretation in Spanish is available for those who join the event online through the RSVP.

Watch the event live here: 

Speakers:

Helene Gayle

President & CEO, The Chicago Community Trust (@helenegayle)

Julio Frenk

President, University of Miami, Former Minister of Health of Mexico (@julio_frenk)

Carlos Felipe Jaramillo

Vice President for the Latin America and the Caribbean Region, World Bank (@CF_Jaramillo)

Ramiro Guerrero

Dean, School of Economics and Finance, Universidad Icesi in Cali, Colombia

Moderator:

Michael Shifter

President, Inter-American Dialogue (@MichaelShifter)