Special issue “Facets of Global Health: Globalisation, Equity, Impact and Action”

T he collection of articles in this special issue provides a broad overview on various facets of global health, and it attempts to establish the link between globalisation and its manifestation and impact on the regional and local levels. The idea for this collection was first conceived during the 13th World Congress on Public Health, held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 23Á27 April 2012, and evolved out of deliberations regarding the lack of comprehensive, dedicated and affordable textbooks for teaching global health. In the aftermath of the World Congress, a group was established to develop a first collection of articles for such textbooks. This special issue is the result of a collaboration that brought together representatives from the World Federation of Public Health Associations (WFPHA), the African Federation of Public Health Associations (AFPHA) and the Department of International Health at Maastricht University. Because global health is an emerging multisectoral field linking (among others) health, trade, governance and foreign policies, development and humanitarian aid, the topics that can be covered in one special issue are necessarily limited. This collection of articles focuses therefore on aspects of governance, international relations and global health policies and on the role of health systems and health systems design including health system reform, primary care and the globalized health workforce. Further facets that are discussed include global health ethics and education. Other important aspects such as global health and global environmental change or global health and urbanisation have not been covered in this special issue but all articles intend to provide an up-to-date overview of the rapidly growing global health literature. The introductory article by Laaser and Brand (1) traces the current state of global health and emerging health issues in the 21st century. Kickbusch and Szabo (2) elaborate on the distinguished differences between global health governance, global governance for health, and governance for global health, and they argue that a clear understanding of these different dimensions for global health will be necessary. Two articles cover the issues of development aid strategies and the current status of the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) debate. Vassall et al. (3) map European Union aid flows and discuss the obvious imbalances in targeting this aid. Lomazzi et al. (4) analyse the possible pathways towards the post-MDGs and the foreseeable difficulties in adjusting international aid in this process to the contemporary challenges. Aluttis et al. (5) analyse the cumbersome path …