Norway has a long history of Global Health activity, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.
Countries in Focus:
**image comes from World Bank: SDG Atlas 2018 – Health and Well-Being, Universal Health Coverage map
Tradition is firmly grounded in national policy
Health is a priority area for Norwegian foreign policy. Norway plays a leading role internationally in Global Health and provides extensive funding in this area. Stating that health is a critical factor in the fight against poverty, the Norwegian Government has decided that Global Health is one of five Foreign Aid priority areas. Read more from the most recent Norwegian government White Paper on the subject, no. 11 (2011–2012).
The Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad), has a Section for Global Health, which is responsible for managing Norwegian development aid in global health and provides technical advice related to Norwegian ODA for global health to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Norwegian embassies and partner organizations/institutions. Learn more, including how Norad works with Global Health.
Norad launched the Norwegian Programme for Capacity Development in Higher Education and Research for Development (NORHED) in 2012. The aim of the programme has been to strengthen capacity of higher education institutions in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) to educate more and better qualified candidates, and to increase quality and quantity of research conducted by the countries’ own researchers.
The Research Council of Norway (RCN) also had a long-term programme in Global Health, Global Health and Vaccination Research (GLOBVAC) supporting high-quality research with potential for high impact that can contribute to sustainable improvements in health and health equity for people in low- and lower-middle income countries (LMIC). While there are still GLOBVAC funding opportunities, the programme is slowly wrapping up. Other Global Health funding opportunities are available. Find out more.
Global Health at the institutional level
Many universities, university colleges, hospitals, institutions of public health and other health institutions around Norway have partnerships and collaborations, some many decades old, with institutions in LMIC. They have well established traditions of capacity-building and capacity-strengthening.
Some of this work will be profiled here as Global Health Norway focuses on activities in specific countries.
GHN's Countries in Focus