Short Abstract

This panel analyses how power and agency shape access, financing, and governance in global health. It interrogates digitalisation, inequality, and community innovation, reimagining equitable, resilient health systems for an uncertain and interconnected world, especially in the global south.

Description

In the Global South, persistent health inequities are deepened by structural poverty, gender disparities, weak health financing, and unequal access to emerging digital technologies. Despite decades of reform, public health systems remain underfunded, donor-dependent, and poorly aligned with local priorities. The growing influence of global health governance, coupled with climate shocks and rapid digitalisation, has further exposed power imbalances in policy and resource allocation. These challenges raise critical questions about whose interests shape health systems and how communities can exercise meaningful influence in reimagining them. This panel examines how power and agency shape public health systems and governance in the Global South. It explores how communities, states, and transnational actors negotiate control, accountability, and innovation in addressing health inequalities. Drawing on interdisciplinary insights from health economics, political economy, and development studies, contributors are invited to critically engage with how global health agendas are formed, financed, and implemented, and whose interests they ultimately serve. The panel also invites papers analysing: Financing models and equity in health systems; Community health agencies and local innovation; Gender and social determinants of health resilience; how Digital health interventions reproduce or challenge inequities in access and outcomes and, Digital governance in health. By reimagining the economics of health beyond narrow efficiency frameworks, this panel seeks to foreground justice, inclusivity, and community agency in shaping future health systems.

This Panel has 2 pending paper proposals.
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