Paper short abstract:

Cuba’s international commitments to health and education will be emboldened through South-South cooperation that aims to meet humanitarian objectives abroad, while furthering domestic strategic interests. Based on recent research, the paper gives evidence of Cuba’s dynamic international outreach.

Paper long abstract:

Alongside Cuba's unfolding domestic economic reforms, progressive changes are occurring with its long-standing international cooperation programs. Focusing on the areas of medical assistance and sport-for-development education, this paper explores the changing face of Cuban internationalism as a process that intersects foreign outreach with meeting domestic needs. The paper argues that Cuba's international commitments to health and education will not be compromised, but in fact emboldened based on evidence from research conducted in Southern Africa, Venezuela and Brazil. Cuban internationalism is positioned to see a deepening of capacity building and outreach to other countries in the global South in exchange for hard currency, preferred prices on select commodities, and direct remission payments. While humanitarian assistance still plays a vital role for Cuban internationalism, an emerging era of solidarity remuneration will greatly influence Cuba's capacity to engage in favourable bi-lateral relationships with Southern partners. As this paper argues, the experience demonstrates an important example of South-South solidarity that employs humanitarianism as means to assist partner nations while strategically furthering the donor nation's own economic, political and social capacity.