The WHO Is No Longer Fit For Purpose

 The top global agency, part of the United Nations system, for promoting preparedness in advance for health emergencies and crises and coordinating national responses, is the World Health Organisation. Unfortunately, its performance in helping the world manage Covid-19 proved, to be kind, very patchy. This makes it all the more surprising that there should be a concerted effort underway to expand its authority and boost its resources.

The Covid-19 crisis illustrates how the source and scope of many critical problems are global and require multilateral solutions, but the policy authority and requisite resources for tackling them are vested in states. An efficient architecture of global health governance would have detected the emerging epidemiological threat early, sounded the alarm, and coordinated the delivery of essential equipment and medicines to population clusters in the most need.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) is at the centre of the existing architecture. It works worldwide to promote universal health care, monitor public health risks, prepare for emerging epidemiological emergencies, and coordinate responses. It sets international health standards and guidelines and provides technical assistance to countries in need. It's credited with eradicating smallpox and coordinating the response to SARS....<<<Read More>>>...