Preprint / Version 1

Global Governance and the WHO’s Mandate Post-COVID-19 Crisis

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21467/preprints.311

Abstract

The COVID-19 has renovated the debate about global health governance. A number of scholars have proposed that the World Health Organization should assume the position of a central coordinator with hierarchical powers, demanding nation-states to “share their sovereignty”. This article presents four main objections to this project. First, when international institutions receive leverage, they use to impose “one-size-fits-all” policies, which conflicts with the characteristic heterogeny across countries. Second, geopolitical questions and the distribution of power in multilateral institutions put developing countries in a position of vulnerability within a hierarchical order. Third, the risk of crowding out parallel initiatives, especially from non-state actors. Fourth, decisions about health can have a major impact on countries, which may thwart the internal democratic principle. A Pareto improvement would be possible by strengthening the WHO’s operational capacity and its ability to issue technical guidance and coordinate with countries. To test this hypothesis, this study analyses the possible influence of the WHO’s guidance in the first year of the coronavirus health crisis, from January 2020 to January 2021, in 37 countries reported in the World Values Survey Wave 7 (2017-2020). The OLS regression performed shows a statistically significant negative relationship between the trust in the WHO, assumed as a proxy for the level of the organization's penetration, and the number of cases of COVID-19 (per million people) in the countries of the sample. These findings reinforce the hypothesis that there is a valid case for the countries to strengthen the WHO’s mandate post-COVID-19, but they should enhance the operations of provision of reliable information and support. Nation-states, in particular the developing ones, should eschew the temptation to create a hierarchical global health structure, which may not only fail due to countries’ asymmetries but is likely to create losers in the process.

Keywords:

COVID-19, Global Health Governance, World Health Organization

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Andreoni J & Payne AA. 2003. Do Government Grants to Private Charities Crowd Out Giving or Fund-raising? American Economic Review, 93(3): 792-812.

Bauer S. 2007. Darren G. Hawkins, David A. Lake, Daniel L. Nielson, and Michael J. Tierney (Eds.): Delegation and Agency in International Organizations: (Cambridge University Press, 2006),” The Review of International Organizations 2, no. 3 (August 21, 2007): 305–7, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11558-007-9025-y.

Boettke P. 2021. The Struggle for a Better World. Mercatus Center, Washington.

Chorev N. 2012. The World Health Organization between North and South. Cornell University Press, Ithaca.

Cockerham WC, Hamby BW & Oates GR. 2017. The Social Determinants of Chronic Disease. Am J Prev Med 52, no. 1S1.

Cohen J. 2006. The New World of Global Health. Science, 311, no. 5758, 162-167.

Dieleman JL. 2006. Development assistance for health: past trends, associations, and the future of international financial flows for health. Lancet 387(10037): 2536-2544

DOI: 10.1126/science.311.5758.162.

Fazal T. 2020. “Health Diplomacy in Pandemical Times,” International Organization 74(S1): E78-E97. doi:10.1017/S0020818320000326.

Feldstein M. 1998. Refocusing the IMF. Foreign Affairs 77(2). Accessed on 20 April 2021. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/asia/1998-03-01/refocusing-imf.

Ferigato S et al. 2020. The Brazilian Government's mistakes in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, The Lancet 396 (10263): 1636.

Fidler DP. 2007. Architecture amidst Anarchy: Global Health’s Quest for Governance. Indiana University, Articles by Maurer Faculty 329.

Fothergill A & Peek LA. 2004. Poverty and Disasters in the United States: A Review of Recent Sociological Findings. Natural Hazards 32.

Frenk J. and Moon S. 2013. Governance Challenges in Global Health. New England Journal of Medicine 368: 936–942.

Gelfand MJ, Harrington JR, & Jackson JC. 2017. The Strength of Social Norms Across Human Groups. Perspect Psychol Sci 12(5). Doi: 10.1177/1745691617708631.

Gostin LO et al. 2020a. Reimagining Public Health section. AJPH 110 (11), 1605–1623.

Gostin LO et. al. 2020b. US withdrawal from WHO is unlawful and threatens global and US health and security,” The Lancet, Comment 396(10247): 293-295.

Haerpfer C et al. 2020. World Values Survey: Round Seven. JD Systems Institute & WVSA Secretariat, Madrid, Spain & Vienna, Austria. doi.org/10.14281/18241.1.

Hale T et al., “Coronavirus Government Response Tracker”, University of Oxford, January 7, 2021. https://www.bsg.ox.ac.uk/research/research-projects/coronavirus-government-response-tracker#data.

Hawkley LC & Cacioppo JT. 2010. Loneliness Matters: A Theoretical and Empirical Review of Consequences and Mechanisms. Annals of Behavioral Medicine 40(2).

Kingdon J. 2011. Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies. Longman, New York.

Leng A & Lemahieu H. 2021. Covid Performance Index: deconstructing pandemic responses. Lowi Institute, Access on 13 March 2021. https://interactives.lowyinstitute.org/features/covid-performance/.

McLaughlin M. 2020. Coronavirus in Scotland: We must learn from Sweden’s light-touch approach, Sturgeon adviser says, The Times, September 28, 2020. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/coronavirus-in-scotland-we-must-learn-from-swedens-light-touch-approach-sturgeon-adviser-says-fft2f6dm6.

Mehtar S et al. 2020. Limiting the spread of COVID-19 in Africa: one size mitigation strategies do not fit all countries. Global Health 8, no. 7. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(20)30212-6.

Moon S et al. 2017. Post-Ebola reforms: ample analysis, inadequate action. BMJ 356:j280. doi: 10.1136/bmj.j280.

Moon S. Forthcoming. The Past, Present, and Future of Global Health Governance. In Barnett, Pevehouse, and Raustiala.

Muller JZ. 2018. The Tyranny of Metrics. Princeton University Press, Princeton.

Nordhaus L. 2005. Paul Samuelson and Global Public Goods. Yale University. http://www.econ.yale.edu/~nordhaus/homepage/homepage/PASandGPG.pdf.

Patrick S. (2014). The Unruled World,” Foreign Affairs 93(1): 58–73.

Paul E, Brown GW, & Ridde V. 2020. COVID-19: time for paradigm shift in the nexus between local, national and global health, BMJ Global Health, 5:e002622. doi:10.1136/bmjgh-2020-002622.

Petherick A et al. 2020. Do Brazil’s COVID-19 government response measures meet the WHO’s criteria for policy easing?” BSG Working Paper Series, University of Oxford.

Pierce M et al. 2020. Mental health before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: a longitudinal probability sample survey of the UK population, Lancet Psychiatry 7. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(20)30308-4.

Pisani-Ferry J. 2018. Should We Give up on Global Governance? Bruegel 17. https://bruegel.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/PC-17-2018.pdf.

Raustiala K. 2016. Governing the Internet, The American Journal of International Law 110, (3): 491-503.

Ravallion M. 2016. The World Bank: Why It Is Still Needed and Why It Still Disappoints,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 30 (1): 77–94.

Rocklöv J & Sjödin H. 2020. High population densities catalyse the spread of COVID-19”, Journal of Travel Medicine 27 (3).

Roser M et al. 2021. Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19), Our World in Data, Access on March 29, 2021. https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus.

Sher L. 2020. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on suicide rates. QJM: An International Journal of Medicine 113 (10): 707-12.

Sjödin H et al. 2020. Only strict quarantine measures can curb the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Italy, 2020”, Eurosurveillance 25 (13).

Sridhar D & Woods N. 2013. Trojan Multilateralism: Global Cooperation in Health. Global Policy 4(4), Wiley Online Library: 325-335.

Taj M and Kurmanaev A. June 12, 2020. Virus Exposes Weak Links in Peru’s Success Story The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/world/americas/coronavirus-peru-inequality-corruption.html.

Veaux RD, Velleman PF, & Bock DE. 2020. Stats: Data and Models Pearson, Hoboken.

Vicenti M et al. 2020. Lockdown timing and efficacy in controlling COVID-19 using mobile phone tracking. The Lancet, EClinicalMedicine 25. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.eclinm.2020.100457.

Wang C et al. 2020. Immediate Psychological Responses and Associated Factors during the Initial Stage of the 2019 Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Epidemic among the General Population in China, Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 17 (5): 1729.

Watson K. 2020. Coronavirus: Brazil's Bolsonaro in denial and out on a limb. BBC News, Access on 20 April 2021. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-52080830.

Weimer DL & Vining AR. 2017. Policy Analysis: Concepts and Practice. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, New York.

World Health Organization - WHO. 2020. Strategic preparedness and response plan. Accessed on 15 April 2021. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/strategic-preparedness-and-response-plan-for-the-new-coronavirus.

World Health Organization - WHO. 2021. WHO Coronavirus (COVID-19) Dashboard. Accessed on 15 April 2021. https://covid19.who.int.

Yanez D. 2020. COVID-19 mortality risk for older men and women”, BMC Public Health 20(1742). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-020-09826-8.

Zürn M. 2012. Globalization and Global Governance, in Handbook of International Relations, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Downloads

Posted

2021-05-18

Section

Coronavirus

Categories