Season 5 of the Global Health Matters podcast opens with a blunt diagnosis of the field’s future from two leading voices, and a roadmap for reform.

In a conversation with host Garry Aslanyan, Paola Abril Campos Rivera of Tecnológico de Monterrey and Catherine Kyobutungi, head of Kenya’s African Population and Health Research Centre, argue that global health must move beyond rhetoric to tackle power, financing and technology.

Kyobutungi says the field’s reality often departs from its ideals.

“At the most basic level … there’s health equity for all people worldwide,” she noted. “But what it has become is that thing that … powerful people and institutions do, to and for people in less powerful and wealthy countries.”

The disruption now roiling aid and geopolitics, she added, is a chance to reset.

“The current moment is not a catastrophe,” according to Kyobutungi. “The current moment is a huge, unprecedented opportunity for reform.”

Campos Rivera pushes for “health justice,” not just equity.

“Global health with justice demands more than technical cooperation to achieve equity in health results,” she said.

She added that it requires “mechanisms that ensure fairness” in governance and in who produces knowledge, shifting away from default deference to the Global North.

When it comes to financing, both urged less dependency and more efficiency.

Kyobutungi pointed to African countries boosting health budgets and called for collapsing parallel procurement systems.

“If it’s not good enough, let’s invest in a system that’s good enough for everybody,” Kyobutungi said.

Campos Rivera backed domestic resource mobilisation alongside fairer global rules and “regional sin tax” options.

Technology is another fault line.

Kyobutungi warned that Africa’s data ecosystems and laws are not yet ready to “harness the full potential of AI.”

Campos Rivera described practical gains, using AI to map consensus among Mexican stakeholders before a national food-systems summit, arguing it can “facilitate the human interaction.”

Listen to more Global Health Matters podcasts on Health Policy Watch >>

Image Credits: TDR | Global Health Matters Podcast.