Health Diplomacy in the CARICOM Region

ABSTRACT

In today's globalized world, with high connectivity and interdependence on other nations, the germs can cross borders within minutes making the Caribbean region more vulnerable. The paramount role of health diplomacy is increasing day by day, especially with the recent COVID-19 pandemic. In 2007, the Caribbean region formulated the "Port of Spain Summit Declaration”, a unique, comprehensive policy addressing chronic non-communicable diseases with a high-level commitment from the head of the states. Health diplomacy is not something new to the region as it has developed many regional initiatives for collective action against HIV/AIDS, other infectious diseases in the past decades but never had a dedicated centre to further the concept or conduct more research. This chapter examines various challenges in the region and emphasizes the region's role in addressing its needs on global platforms to negotiate for more assistance and robust policies to safeguard peace, health, and development. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.