Paper short abstract:

For over a decade Cuba has been delivering a solidarity and equity-based health and medical training programme in the Pacific. This paper explores this programme, and the challenges it presents to the dominant aid paradigm and to normative discourses of development and health in the region.

Paper long abstract:

Pacific Island countries (PICs) face considerable challenges in delivering health care, challenges being addressed by Cuba, who is currently delivering an extensive health and medical training programme in the Pacific. To date the programme has been considered a success and, due to the small populations of PICs and the relative size of the Cuban assistance, has already had a significant impact on both the doctor to population ratio and the structure of the health workforce in some PICS. However this is no ordinary medical aid programme, but one based on "multiple coincidences" between Cuba and PICs as small island states, which draws on an equity and solidarity-based approach to development and health that is rooted in the idea that health care is a right for all and in the belief that development cooperation is a matter of solidarity between peoples. This approach is particularly noteworthy in the context of recent trilateral aid agreements with Australia and New Zealand, where the Cuban solidarity-based model contrasts sharply with the modified neo-liberal models of aid and health care prevalent in the region. This paper explores the Cuban programme in the Pacific and the development implications of Cuban assistance to PICs, particularly the challenges it presents to the dominant aid paradigm and to normative discourses of development and health in the region.