"With more than 40 million people living with HIV/AIDS, and more than 25 million dead from related diseases since the early 1980s, the need to understand the causes and impact of the pandemic is manifest. In response, The Global Politics of AIDS explores power and politics at multiple levels, ranging from individual behavior to corporate boardrooms to international institutions and forces." "The authors combine careful scholarship with sensitivity to both the suffering of those afflicted and the frustration of those seeking to bring about meaningful change. All royalties from sales of the book will be donated to AIDS-related charities."--BOOK JACKET.
International responses to the outbreak of SARS, the spread of HIV/AIDS, and the promotion of health as a human right all demonstrate how global politics have a profound effect on the way we think about and respond to major health challenges. Despite a growing interest in the relationship between health and international relations there has yet to be a systematic study of the links between them. Global Politics of Health aims to fill this gap - ultimately showing how world politics can be good, or bad, for your health. This book calls for a more nuanced understanding of the nature of the current global health crisis and the political dilemmas faced by those responsible for the development and implementation of responses to it. By charting these debates and showing how they shape the way actors think about key issues relating to health, such as people movement, infectious disease, the business of health, and the consequences of war, this volume provides an innovative and comprehensive introduction to health and international relations for students of global politics, health studies and related disciplines.
This book examines the global governance of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, interrogating the role of this international system and global discourse on HIV/AIDS interventions. The geographical focus is Sub-Saharan Africa since the region has been at the forefront of these interventions. There is a need to understand the relationship between the international political environment and the impact of resulting policies on HIV/AIDS in the context of people’s lives. Hakan Seckinelgin points out a certain disjuncture between this governance structures and the way people experience the disease in their everyday lives. Although the structure allows people to emerge as policy relevant target groups and beneficiaries, the articulation of needs and design of policy interventions tends to reflect international priorities rather than people’s thinking on the problem. In other words, he argues that while the international interventions highlight the importance attributed to the HIV/AIDS problem, the nature of the system does not allow interventions to be far reaching and sustainable. Offering a critical contribution to the understanding of the problems in HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa, International Politics of HIV/AIDS will be invaluable to students and researchers of health, international politics and development.
AIDS, Sex, and Culture is a revealing examination of the impact the AIDS epidemic in Africa has had on women, based on the author's own extensive ethnographic research. based on the author's own story growing up in South Africa looks at the impact of social conservatism in the US on AIDS prevention programs discussion of the experiences of women in areas ranging from Durban in KwaZulu Natal to rural settlements in Namibia and Botswana includes a chapter written by Sibongile Mkhize at the University of KwaZulu Natal who tells the story of her own family’s struggle with AIDS
Protecting and promoting health is inherently a political endeavor that requires a sophisticated understanding of the distribution and use of power. Yet while the global nature of health is widely recognized, its political nature is less well understood. In recent decades, the interdisciplinary field of global health politics has emerged to demonstrate the interconnections of health and core political topics, including foreign and security policy, trade, economics, and development. Today a growing body of scholarship examines how the global health landscape has both shaped and been shaped by political actors and structures. The Oxford Handbook of Global Health Politics provides an authoritative overview and assessment of research on this important and complicated subject. The volume is motivated by two arguments. First, health is not simply a technical subject, requiring evidence-based solutions to real-world problems, but an arena of political contestation where norms, values, and interests also compete and collide. Second, globalization has fundamentally changed the nature of health politics in terms of the ideas, interests, and institutions involved. The volume comprises more than 30 chapters by leading experts in global health and politics. Each chaper provides an overview of the state of the art on a given theoretical perspective, major actor, or global health issue. The Handbook offers both an excellent introduction to scholars new to the field and also an invaluable teaching and research resource for experts seeking to understand global health politics and its future directions.
This book examines the global governance of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, interrogating the role of this international system and global discourse on HIV/AIDS interventions. The geographical focus is Sub-Saharan Africa since the region has been at the forefront of these interventions. There is a need to understand the relationship between the international political environment and the impact of resulting policies on HIV/AIDS in the context of people’s lives. Hakan Seckinelgin points out a certain disjuncture between this governance structures and the way people experience the disease in their everyday lives. Although the structure allows people to emerge as policy relevant target groups and beneficiaries, the articulation of needs and design of policy interventions tends to reflect international priorities rather than people’s thinking on the problem. In other words, he argues that while the international interventions highlight the importance attributed to the HIV/AIDS problem, the nature of the system does not allow interventions to be far reaching and sustainable. Offering a critical contribution to the understanding of the problems in HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa, International Politics of HIV/AIDS will be invaluable to students and researchers of health, international politics and development.
Brazil’s public policy response to the AIDS epidemic preceded those of many developing countries. During my tenure as President, in 1996, Brazil adopted a law guaranteeing free and universal access to AIDS treatment for all people living with HIV/AIDS. Brazil became the first developing country to provide publicly-financed AIDS treatment for all people living with HIV/AIDS. We now have one of the world’s most successful AIDS programs that is considered a model for other dev- oping countries. Today, 185,000 people receive life-saving AIDS cocktails in Brazil, and thousands of lives have been saved. But this was not an easy battle. There were many challenges along the way. Twenty years ago, Brazil’s achie- ments today might have seemed impossible. During the 1980s, in Brazil, as elsewhere, there was overwhelming stigma associated with AIDS; people living with HIV often lost their jobs and died quickly before the advent of life-saving antiretroviral drugs. Brazil’s AIDS movement was extraordinarily important in promoting progressive AIDS policies; associations of people living with HIV were the first to denounce pervasive AIDS-related discri- nation and called public attention to the importance of AIDS. Activists protested in the streets for over a decade, engaged the media, and framed AIDS as a human rights issue.
Peter Piot, founding executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), recounts his experience as a clinician, scientist, and activist fighting the disease from its earliest manifestation to today. The AIDS pandemic was not only catastrophic to the health of millions worldwide but also fractured international relations, global access to new technologies, and public health policies in nations across the globe. As he struggled to get ahead of the disease, Piot found science does little good when it operates independently of politics and economics, and politics is worthless if it rejects scientific evidence and respect for human rights. Piot describes how the epidemic altered global attitudes toward sexuality, the character of the doctor-patient relationship, the influence of civil society in international relations, and traditional partisan divides. AIDS thrust health into national and international politics where, he argues, it rightly belongs. The global reaction to AIDS over the past decade is the positive result of this partnership, showing what can be achieved when science, politics, and policy converge on the ground. Yet it remains a fragile achievement, and Piot warns against complacency and the consequences of reduced investments. He refuses to accept a world in which high levels of HIV infection are the norm. Instead, he explains how to continue to reduce the incidence of the disease to minute levels through both prevention and treatment, until a vaccine is discovered.
Peter Piot, founding executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), reports on the influence of civil society in international relations and traditional partisan divides. AIDS thrust health into national and international politics where, he argues, it rightly belongs. The global reaction to AIDS over the past decade is the positive result of this partnership, showing what can be acheved when science, politics, and policy converge on the ground. Piot describes funding mechanisms for AIDS, the first international declarations, the response of the UN system, the establishment of UNAIDS, the response of high income countries to AIDS, The Global Fund and PEPFAR as game-changers, and lessons for other health problems.
