It reveals a shift taking place in global health and development: states engaging not as donors, but as financial investors.

This Cambridge Elements on Global Development Studies volume applies the lens of 'investor state' to a pattern of cross-border activities emerging at the end of aid. Using a series of case studies, the volume examines the growth of a trend where states operate as, with and for investors in the healthcare provision sectors of other nations. It sheds light on an evolving institutional landscape for global health in which state-owned development finance institutions, national development banks and sovereign wealth funds are becoming key financial stakeholders in healthcare systems. The trend has been gathering pace in the past 10-15 years in contexts of growing diversity for development financing and is driving the expansion of corporate-oriented models for healthcare provision that are liable to undermine already-strained progress towards achieving equitable access in healthcare globally.