Capacity, willingness, and need in the health regime

The chapter focuses on health financing as the key area of differential treatment in the global health regime. It conceptualizes differential treatment in this context as capacity, willingness, and need (CWN). Regarding the question of how CWN has been contested and adjusted, the chapter shows the following. There have been repeated contestations that ranged from attempted unmaking to attempted expanding of CWN. Against the background of these contestations, CWN has been subject to adjustments, but these have often contributed to a preservation of the status quo ante and hence to resilience. In particular, attenuated and partial graduation has increasingly been accepted while it was initially heavily contested. These developments have, however, been accompanied by an informalization that has ambivalent consequences and weakens differential treatment in a manner that was not anticipated in our initial conceptualization of change (Chapter 1). In essence, it makes differential treatment increasingly voluntary, discretionary, and (non)contributor-exposed.