In 2023, the Japanese government chaired the Group of Seven (G7) Hiroshima Summit, which took place from May 19th to 21st. Various stakeholders engaged in activities such as advocacy efforts in preparation for the G7 Hiroshima Summit and related ministerial meetings, including the G7 Nagasaki Health Ministers’ Meeting.

This HGPI Seminar will provide an overview of the activities leading up to the G7 Hiroshima Summit. Moreover, in September, the United Nations General Assembly High-Level Meetings will be held at the UN Headquarters in New York, addressing three health issues: “Prevention, Preparedness, and Response (PPR),” “Universal Health Coverage (UHC),” and “Tuberculosis”. The G20, led by India as the chair country, is also part of the global health movements. The purpose of the HGPI seminar is to grasp these developments in the international community regarding future global health issues and to consider the role expected of Japan as the G7 chair country until the end of December, and future global health challenges.

The international community is currently facing various crises, including conflicts and climate change. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) highlighted “health threats” as a new generation of threats to human security in their special report titled “New threats to human security in the Anthropocene,” emphasizing the importance of resolving health-related issues for the international community. Moreover, global health has undergone a significant transformation triggered by the spread of the novel coronavirus infection. It has become evident that health and medical policies are greatly influenced by international politics, necessitating not only discussions on public health policies but also close coordination with various related fields, such as security policies, economic policies, fiscal policies, and science and technology promotion policies. Extensive discussions are being held on various topics, including the development and equitable distribution of innovative medical products such as vaccines, the promotion of UHC, the direction of the Global Health Architecture (GHA), and PPR.

Therefore, in this HGPI seminar, Prof. Haruka Sakamoto, a senior manager at HGPI, speak about the current state of global health. Prof. Sakamoto has been involved in research projects such as ” Research on Establishing Japan’s Effective Presence at the 2023 G7 Health-Related Meetings and Contributing to International Health Policies ” part of a special research project by the Ministry of Health Labour and Welfare. She has also engaged in research on “Rethinking Global Health Policy in the Post-COVID Era” at the Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research and contributed to the “2023 G7 Global Health Task Force” organized by the Japan Center for International Exchange, leading discussions on Japan’s global health issues. The seminar aims to provide an opportunity to consider the current trends in global health based on discussions within the G7 and to contemplate Japan’s role as the United Nations General Assembly High-Level Meetings in September are approaching.

*Please note that this seminar is available in Japanese only. An English report of this event will be published in due course.

[Event Overview]

• Speaker: Haruka Sakamoto (Senior Manager, Health and Global Policy Institute / Associate Professor, Department of International Affairs and Tropical Medicine, Tokyo Women’s Medical University / Senior Fellow, the Tokyo Foundation Institute for Policy Research)
• Date & Time: Wednesday, September 6, 2023; from 18:30 to 19:45 JST
• Format: Online (Zoom webinar)
• Language: Japanese
• Participation fee: Free
• Capacity: 500

■ Speaker Profile:

Haruka Sakamoto (Senior Manager, Health and Global Policy Institute / Associate Professor, Department of International Affairs and Tropical Medicine, Tokyo Women’s Medical University / Senior Fellow, the Tokyo Foundation Institute for Policy Research)
After Professor Haruka Sakamoto, MD MPH, PhD graduated from Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine and served as an internist at St. Luke’s International Hospital, she worked at the International Affairs and the Maternal and Child Health Divisions of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW). She has represented Japan at various international conferences including the United Nations General Assembly and the World Health Organization (WHO) General Assembly. She also participated in organizing the G7 Ise-Shima Summit and the G7 Kobe Health Ministers’ Meeting in 2016. She attended the Harvard T.H Chan School of Public Health with a scholarship from the World Bank and received a Master of Public Health degree in 2014. In 2021, she received a Doctor of Public Health degree from the University of Tokyo. Her current roles include Associate Professor, Department of International Affairs and Tropical Medicine, Tokyo Women’s Medical University; Project Researcher, Department of Global Health Policy, the University of Tokyo; Consultant, WHO Western Pacific Regional Office; and Senior Fellow, the Tokyo Foundation Institute for Policy Research.