Requirements and Challenges in Iran for Adoption of Efficient Health Diplomacy

Document Type : Original Independent Original Article

Author

Associate Professor at International Relations, Political Science Department , Faculty of Humanities, Yasouj University, Yasouj, Iran.

Abstract

The worldwide outbreak of the COVID-19 has turned the need to pursue health diplomacy into an undeniable reality in developing countries, especially Iran. Inconsistent, short-term, and intermittent attempts have been made for this purpose in Iran; however, the goals and plans of Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs are not still clear and appraisable. This study aims to determine the requirements and challenges that Iran faces to adopt a kind of successful and efficient diplomacy. In this regard, the research hypothesis emphasizes the role and importance of health diplomacy in Iran’s foreign policy as a requirement to relieve distrust and tension in relations with other countries, something which is considered a challenge. Therefore, a qualitative explanatory-analytical approach was used in this study. Moreover, a desk method was employed to collect the necessary data from two groups of printed and electronic sources in order to purposefully answer the main research question. According to the findings, Iran should consider a series of political and economic requirements in its foreign policy to benefit from a kind of successful health diplomacy. In fact, Iran’s most important requirements were identified as perceiving the importance and position of health diplomacy, formulating strategic plans, training professional diplomats, relieving tensions, and building trust. However, the most prominent international challenges were identified as distrust in Iran, uneasy and tense foreign relations, and the presence of powerful rivals on both regional and international scales. Furthermore, the domestic challenges were classified as content-related, structural, cultural, governance-related, economic, and process-related problems.

Highlights

Introduction

Although health has always been on the agenda of countries' foreign policies, it has historically been separated from foreign policy and viewed primarily as a domestic policy. Politicians and researchers interested in international relations have not shown much interest in the health sector. They have dismissed this sector as trivial and overlooked it. As a result, health diplomacy is viewed as a developing field that considers the dual goals of improving global health and improving international relations, particularly in crisis and poverty-stricken areas, and thus connects these two fields. Unlike in Western countries, where linking foreign policy to health has been successful over the last century, this diplomacy has not found its proper place in developing countries, particularly Iran. The outbreak of COVID-19 in Iran is one of the recent events that has highlighted the importance of this diplomacy. Iran was one of the Middle Eastern nations with the highest rates of COVID-19 infections, which underscored the need for health diplomacy to be in place. This necessity was heightened when Iran experienced several waves of COVID-19 epidemics between 2020 and 2021, posing serious challenges in combating this health threat. However, European countries with health diplomacy were able to successfully promote intrahealth collaboration in the form of health diplomacy and overcome the problems quickly. A similar thing occurred in Southeast Asian countries, as well as in the foreign policies of Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, and Singapore. In other words, if Iran had intense health diplomacy, it could have responded to this health challenge in the same way that its foreign counterparts did. In light of the preceding, the critical question that arises is what requirements and challenges Iran faces to conduct successful and efficient diplomacy.

 Methodology

This qualitative study adopted an explanatory-analytical approach. The nature of research and studying how and why an action can be realized necessitated using a qualitative rather than a quantitative approach. Moreover, the explanatory approach was selected over the descriptive, explanatory, and comparative methods to describe how and why Iran needs to engage in health diplomacy. In order to answer the main research questions, required data was collected in a desk study using two printed and electronic sources and a purposive method.

 Results and Discussion

The findings indicated that various problems and barriers had hampered Iran's success in health diplomacy at the national and international levels. The following were the significant challenges at the international level: 1. Mistrust in Iran, as well as false propaganda against its medical products 2. Iran's severed ties with its neighbors; 3. Iran's main regional and international rivals. Even though Iran has made significant medical advances over the last four decades and was even successful in introducing domestically-made vaccine products during the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a large amount of false propaganda in order to undermine the efficiency and effectiveness of the medications both in the physical and cyberspace. Such propaganda, which is sometimes spread in foreign media, distorts Iran's achievements in the health sector and its intention to collaborate in this area. Furthermore, military, ideological, and political competitions for Middle Eastern leadership have tainted Iran's foreign relations and resulted in mistrust between the two parties. Examples of these international relationships include those between Iran and Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Bahrain. Countries that could be the target of Iran's health policy and benefit from medical services, health tourism, and medical supply and medication exports have disagreements with Iran on various issues and have cold and strained relations. Additionally, domestic political unrest, economic pressures, and the Iran-Iran war in the first decade following the Iranian Revolution all prevented Tehran from making significant investments in the health sector. Due to this, most of the modifications to the Iranian healthcare and the medical system took place gradually, starting in the second decade following the revolution. As a result, some regional competitors of Iran, such as Turkey and Jordan, were able to defeat Iran. The resolution of tensions between Arabs and Israel in 2020 will quickly add Israel to the competition as a more bitter and more pungent rival in the immediate future. Stronger international rivals such as the US and EU State members should be added to this list of regional competitors, where Arab citizens of the region have traveled to treat their illnesses and where the said countries supply the majority of the medical supplies required in their hospitals. In addition, six domestic issues were identified as thematic, structural, cultural, governance, economic, and procedural issues. Such issues are old and persistent, and Iranian health diplomacy would be futile unless they were addressed first.

 Conclusion

The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated that the health sector could not be isolated from foreign policy. Countries must collaborate more than ever before to overcome global problems, particularly those related to epidemics, global warming, the possibility of chemical and radioactive particle emissions in space, and so on. International organizations, particularly the World Health Organization (WHO), are among the sectors where collaboration should be highlighted. Tracking on health diplomacy by countries is a prerequisite for success in such international collaboration. To address its issues with health diplomacy, Iran should implement the following initiatives: 1. Regarding international challenges, among the solutions that can be considered are resolving tensions, building trust, conducting bilateral and multilateral dialogues, and creating mechanisms for regional security in the form of participation. 2. Domestically, inter-sector collaboration, correcting administrative structures, developing and adjusting upstream documents, planning short-term, mid-term, and long-term plans, and transparency and accountability are more important than anything else. To realize the above-said points, Iranian authorities must have a strong political will and a proper understanding of the position of health in foreign policy, develop a strategic plan to realize it, train professional diplomats, engage in multilateral diplomacy, develop health tourism, and consider the capacity of non-governmental organizations. Countries with successful experiences in this regard, such as Turkey, India, Brazil, and Cuba, which are evaluated on the same level as Iran, can serve as appropriate models for future planning.

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