Regional Health Governance, Policy and Diplomacy

Regional activism is of growing significance in both national and global politics, and PRARI, an OU-led international research collaboration whose Principal Investigator is Professor Nicola Yeates, was established to seek a better understanding of how regional organisations pursue pro-poor policies in relation to health and what can be done to support them.

Now, as part of their efforts, a special open access issue of Global Social Policy has been guest edited by Pía Riggirozzi and Nicola Yeates. The collected articles offer evidence from a range of international scholars, activists and policy officials of how regional organisations in southern Africa and South America are initiating new norms to improve health rights in international arenas.

In their introduction, 'Locating regional health policy: analytics, politics and practices' Riggirozzi and Yeates argue that poverty reduction and health have become central in the agendas of Southern regional organisations in the last two decades, yet little is known about how the organisation address poverty, inclusion and social inequality.

They go on to review academic literatures spanning regional and diplomacy studies, global social policy and the state of understanding of the 'place' of regional actors in health governance as a global political practice. By identifying points of connection, the authors provide a framework for the research articles that follow, highlighting the ways in which the different articles present new evidence about how social relations of welfare are being (re)made over larger scales, and how regional actors may improve health rights by engaging in new forms of 'regional' diplomacy.

Read full issue of Global Social Policy: Regional Health Governance, Policy and Diplomacy