Civil Society Organizations and Global Health Governance
Final Reports
Executive Summary, Vancouver Meeting
For four days, between June 25 and June 29, 2007, 18 invited junior and senior academics and global health professionals met at the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of British Columbia to deliberate the impact that civil society organizations have had on global health governance. The purpose of the Wall Summer Institute for Research 2007 was to bring together a diverse group of individuals working and researching different aspects of global public health in order to analyze critical and controversial phenomena that have not yet been analyzed and to advance thinking and dialogue in this area in order to improve global health outcomes.
The event was structured as a discussion seminar. Each day was broken down into a morning session that was open to students and members of the community and an intensive closed afternoon session. Between four and six observers attended the open sessions each morning. To further open the event to the broader community, a major public talk was given on the second evening by James Orbinski on the topic of “Why Civil Society Matters to Global Health.”
Certain key questions and ideas provoked by the Vancouver WSIR were further developed at the follow-up event, which was a weekend retreat in London, hosted by the Peter Wall Institute and co-sponsored by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the Munk Centre for International Studies in October, 2007.
This two-day closed, invitational research retreat brought together a mix of 18 junior and experienced scholars of global health governance from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. The purpose of this year’s retreat was to offer a unique opportunity for new participants – graduate students and postdoctoral fellows – to gather with some of those who participated in the June meeting in Vancouver, and a few other, more senior researchers to exchange ideas as well as to build an international, interdisciplinary network of emerging and experienced scholars that will advance research in this important field.
Official Scribe Report
- Vancouver Meeting (PDF, 355KB)
Executive Summary, London Follow-Up Meeting
This two-day closed, invitational research retreat was a follow-up event to the four-day Wall Summer Institute for Advanced Research on “Civil Society and Global Health Governance” that took place in Vancouver in June 2007. It brought together a mix of 18 junior and experienced scholars of global health governance from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. The purpose of this year’s retreat was to offer a unique opportunity for new participants – graduate students and postdoctoral fellows – to gather with some of those who participated in the June meeting in Vancouver, and a few other, more senior researchers to exchange ideas as well as to build an international, interdisciplinary network of emerging and experienced scholars that will advance research in this important field.
Official Scribe Report
- London Meeting, Short Version (PDF, 194KB)
Continuing Activities
WSIR 2007 continues to bear fruit with the establishment of an active web-based research network to help promote scholarly work on global health governance. The email listserv and website offers researchers a location to register their own interests, find out what others are doing, exchange information and share draft work. Maintained by the WHO Collaborating Centre on Global Change and Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the network has grown in less than a year to 67 individuals located in eight countries. The network aims, in particular, to link younger scholars with senior academics. Already a number of collaborations have been taken forward including contributions to the Global Health Watch 2008 report, a paper for the forthcoming series on trade and health in The Lancet, research proposals to various funders, and the organisation of a major section on global health governance for the International Studies Association annual conference in February 2009.
This web-based research network is a direct outcome of the WSIR 2007 follow-up research retreat in London co-hosted with Dr. Kelly Lee and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine October 6 - 7, 2007.