Assessing The Foreign Policy And Global Health Initiative: The Meaning Of The Oslo Process

The Foreign Policy and Global Health Initiative (FPGHI), launched by the foreign ministers of Brazil, France, Indonesia, Norway, Senegal, South Africa and Thailand in 2006, and the subsequent Oslo Ministerial Declaration of 2007, have developed an iconic status in the study of health as a foreign policy issue. The FPGHI and Declaration recognized the growing importance of health issues in foreign policy and established a process to make them a strategic foreign policy concern. With the fifth anniversaries of the FPGHI and Declaration approaching, this effort deserves scrutiny as part of the larger, ongoing attempt to understand the place of global health issues in foreign policy.