Input to the Government's Global Health Security Strategy

Our input builds on our notes The world's best insurance: Why Norway must focus on health preparedness (2025) and Technology-Driven Biological Threats (2026), and the report Norway can, Norway should: Take leadership to halve premature death by 2050 (2024) from the Expert Committee on Global Health, all of which are highly relevant to the government's new strategy. We also support the input of some of the members from the latter selection provided separately.

Overall, we are particularly positive about the principle in the outline that prevention globally is more cost-effective than managing crises nationally, and that Norwegian efforts should be prioritised where it has the greatest possible positive effect. In the balance between efficiency and need, we believe that efficiency must be emphasized most heavily, and that needs are indirectly emphasized because the effect of measures is normally greater for those who have the greatest need.

At the same time, we believe that the strategy's potential is limited by three structural weaknesses: a funding framework that undermines ambitions, the absence of organizational measures for successful implementation, and the failure to integrate health security into Norway's overall preparedness.

The most important thing in the first place is the organisational moves at home - funding from several budget areas and mechanisms that ensure real follow-up - because these are prerequisites for the strategy to have real consequences.

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