ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the necessity not only of better global health governance but also the challenges to cooperation on health issues. Capacity and funding constraints, geopolitics, domestic politics and sovereignty, the proliferation of both public and private actors and issues of equity are just some of these challenges. This chapter traces the development of global health governance since the late nineteenth century to demonstrate how contemporary institutions and mechanisms have emerged, before exploring how they have responded to contemporary health issues and the debates that have arisen as a result. It examines how HIV/AIDS, Ebola, and COVID-19, among other health issues, have both challenged and shaped global health governance, and how institutions like the World Health Organization (WHO) will need to adapt to adequately address future health issues.
