Global health and domestic policy – What motivated the development of the German Global Health Strategy?

ABSTRACT

In 2013, the German government published its national Global Health Strategy, outlining principles and focal topics for German engagement in global health. We asked the question of why Germany has decided to establish a national policy framework for global health at this point in time, and how the development process has taken place. The ultimate goal of this study was to achieve better insights into the respective health and foreign policy processes at the national level. This article reports on the results of semi-structured interviews with those actors that were responsible for initiating and drafting the German Global Health Strategy (GGHS). Our study shows that a series of external developments, stakeholders, and advocacy efforts created an environment conducive to the creation of the strategic document. In addition, a number of internal considerations, struggles, and capacities played a decisive role during the development phase of the GGHS. Understanding these factors better can not only provide substantial insights into global health related policy processes in Germany, but also contribute to the general discourse on the role of the nation state in global health governance.

KEYWORDS:

• Governance for global health
• global health strategies
• Germany
• global health in Europe
• global health actors

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. It should be noted that while the GGHS had initially been developed under the former coalition government of Conservatives and Liberals, the current coalition of Conservatives and Social Democrats has stated that the strategy is still in effect (see Deutscher Bundestag, 2014a).