Canada-UK: A healthy relationship

I was at the beautiful Cumberland Lodge near Windsor, UK, last week for the 2013 Canada-UK Colloquium.

The Colloquium is an annual event, taking place alternately in each country, bringing together British and Canadian parliamentarians, public officials, academics, representatives from the private sector, graduate students and others, to discuss a topic of the day, and to inform public policy.

This year’s topic was ‘New Realities for Global Health: Britain and Canada Working Together’. It brought together healthcare practitioners, doctors, researchers, politicians, directors of public health institutes and civil servants to look at the links between global health and economic, developmental and foreign policy challenges, and how to bring together public sector and non-state actors to collaborate in a policy of ‘Global Health Diplomacy’. A huge agenda!

Cynics might say this sounds like a lot of hot air. But quite the contrary.

What really struck me was the dynamism and energy of the debate, led by the world’s leading practitioners in the field of global health. As a non-expert, I learned a huge amount, and it struck me a) how much close UK-Canada collaboration there already is in this area – whether on anti-microbial resistance (a very scary topic if you haven’t read about it already), maternal and newborn health, epidemiology, and dementia, which is a key focus of the UK’s G8 Presidency (and on which we are hosting a summit in December)

What’s really important is the follow up. I’m delighted that through our network of excellent Science and Innovation officers in Canada we have a great programme of UK-Canada collaboration on global health issues.

This all forms part of the Joint Declaration signed by our two Prime Ministers in 2011, and the Joint Innovation Statement (covering joint research projects, and MoUs between British and Canadian institutions from marine energy, to neurology to carbon capture and storage).

The G8 Dementia Summit in London in December will be a great focal point for the neurodegeneration in ageing agenda, and our ongoing work with Canada on maternal and newborn health will continue to be a big political priority for our two governments.

I really look forward to taking this agenda forward. It’s a key plank of an energetic and dynamic modern UK-Canada relationship.

Remember, in between posts you can follow me on twitter @corinrobertson.