Emerging and Transitioning Countries’ Role in Global Health

Global health scholarship has failed to adequately consider the “BRIC” cluster of nations - Brazil, Russia, India and China - particularly in the aggregate. An article search with the keywords “BRIC” and “public health” yields just one publication. But these countries have a unique role to play in the global health enterprise by addressing global health problems as they build their own health systems and help developing countries improve their populations’ health. Moreover, the BRIC nations are becoming increasingly important components of the global health architecture, individually as nations and collectively as a nexus of influence. In June 2009, the countries held the first-ever BRIC summit in Yekaterinburg, Russia, debuting as a policy consultation and coordination group. What these countries collectively have to offer in the quest to improve global health merits attention. This article focuses on the role of emerging and transitioning countries as actors in (1) providing financial assistance to lower-income countries; (2) supplying medical goods and services to the developing world; (3) giving technical assistance; (4) improving access to medicines and intellectual property; (5) modeling effective health-sector framework-building to less developed countries; (6) delivering object lessons learned from the health and development process; (7) helping lower-income countries grow their economies and reduce poverty; (8) taking a significant role in global health governance; and (9) bolstering the link between health and foreign policy. For all their growing power and potential, however, they are still emerging and transforming countries with their own daunting and persisting health challenges that require continuing assistance from the global health community