Translation of the Unified Health System (SUS) principles in the Global Health field: impact of the far-rights rise and the role of intersectoral coordination in Brazil\'s foreign policy

Author(s)

Paulo Roberto Ferreira Trivellato

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Instituto de Relações Internacionais (IRI)
• Defense date: 2022-07-25

Examining board members

Deisy de Freitas Lima Ventura; Anne Emanuelle Birn; Monica Ellen Seabra Hirst

• Advisor: Deisy de Freitas Lima Ventura

Abstract

The implementation of a public system of universal access to care has been the most significant contribution of the health sector to democratization in Brazil. The translation of its principles into foreign policy elevated the country to a leader in global health. However, the rise of the far-right to power has fractured this dual process by relinquishing leadership roles in both regional and broader progressive initiatives. Based on documental analysis and specialized literature, this dissertation is composed of an article submitted to the journal Latin American Policy and a report of the empirical research that gave rise to it concerning the composition of Brazilian delegations to the World Health Assembly, the most representative decision-making body of the World Health Organization (WHO). As a whole, the dissertation identifies the actors responsible for the alignment between Brazilian foreign policy and the principles of the Unified Health System, and demonstrates that a significant retraction in the diplomatic activity of these actors paved the way for the renouncing of protagonism in progressive agendas. and for the emergence of a new Brazilian leadership within a neoconservative international alliance. After the decline of UNASUR Saúde and public opposition to the sexual and reproductive rights agenda, this process culminated in the transformation of the Ministry of Health into an ideological apparatus, with a radical replacement of cadres and an explicit rejection of the ethos of the WHO\'s performance (defense of evidence-based public health policies); in addition to the abandonment of the acclaimed defense of the primacy of health over intellectual property rights in the World Trade Organization during the covid-19 pandemic. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 19/26002-6 - Brazil's changing directions in global health: a critical analysis of the country positioning in the World Health Organization in 2019
• Grantee: Paulo Roberto Ferreira Trivellato
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master