Global health is at a turning point. Global health actors founded in the late twentieth century are faced with challenges that were not foreseen in the wake of World War II. In addition to multiple ongoing pandemics, with the near certainty of other pandemics to come in the future, global health agencies must contend with the growing displacement and ill-health linked to climate change; with economic volatility, growing income inequality, the rise of populism, the spread of "fake news" through globally networked technologies, and other destabilising political forces.
Multilateralism itself is increasingly called into question: by countries competing to obtain essential medical products and future vaccines, while contending over the structure and the very existence of the World Health Organization; by civil society groups demanding a more meaningful voice in decision-making processes; by science skeptics and anti-vaxxers. New forms of mobilisation insist on structural change: from Black Lives Matter, to the #metoo movement, to calls to decolonise global health, and growing public concerns about income inequality.
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