José Roberto Ferreira: um intermediário entre a saúde internacional e a saúde global, 1959-2019

This article presents José Roberto Ferreira’s contribution to national and international discussions on the training of health professionals and his contributions to the construction of a critical proposal for South-South cooperation in health. The article argues that Ferreira advocated that health education, developed based on the particular realities of less developed countries, would be a path to emancipation. Initially, we will present Ferreira’s training and early works in the field of education (1959-1969); his international experiences and contacts with important figures in Latin American social medicine (1969-1996); and, finally, his work at Fiocruz within the framework of foreign policy for the development of structuring cooperation in health (1996-2019).