WHO’s Global Health & Peace Initiative: Political or Diplomatic? [EB154]
Newsletter Edition #212 [The Files In-Depth]
Hi,
Conflict has become an integral part of the global health discourse. It is therefore not surprising that as the premier organization to govern health, WHO has had to find ways to navigate messy geopolitics.
In today’s edition, our final story from the recently concluded WHO Executive Board meeting, we bring you up to speed with WHO’s Global Health and Peace Initiative.
The context in which this discussion is unfolding is striking given the simultaneous conflicts in different parts of the world. But laid over the complex dynamics in global health, these conflicts serve to bring into clarity where member states of WHO stand in relation to each other, and in relation to the mandate of the WHO.
Major funders of WHO, are also masters on the geopolitical chess board. But this contradiction does not sit well on the ground, such as in Gaza, for example.
Scholars and practitioners believe that health work is by nature political, and therefore there may not be a way for WHO to deliver on its functions without getting its hands dirty. In other words, WHO, and anyone who works in health, cannot shy away from being political. As one scholar points out: Peace is Political.
We regret the delay in getting this to you, but we got drawn into the WTO story from last week, in case you missed it: WTO to Pull the Plug on Extension Decision on COVID-19 Tests & Treatments. TRIPS Chair Calls for “Conclusion” as Talks "Exhausted".
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Watch out for our analysis later this week on the ongoing meeting on the working group of the IHR, now underway in Geneva.
We thank you for your patience and understanding. We will have a wonky publishing schedule dictated by an intense and unpredictable news cycle around global health negotiations in the coming weeks.
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Priti
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I. ANALYSIS: WHO EB154
WHO’s Global Health & Peace Initiative: Political or Diplomatic? [EB154]
By Priti Patnaik & Yiyao Yang
Yukta N contributed to this story
Using health to forge peace in a world grappling with multiple conflicts, could prove to be innovative at a time when essential health work is increasingly getting in the cross-hairs of geopolitics. Championed by Oman and Switzerland, WHO’s Global Health and Peace Initiative proposes a way forward, but some countries caution against a further securitization of the health agenda.
At WHO’s Executive Board meeting last month, member states discussed a framework for the Global Health and Peace Initiative, and consented to a decision proposed by Switzerland, one of the lead sponsors of the initiative. First proposed in 2020 , DG Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the initiative has gone through several rounds of consultations, and will be approved if countries decide so at the World Health Assembly in May 2024.
The initiative comes at a time when Tedros whose tenure has coincided with health crises and conflicts, has repeatedly called for a ceasefire in Gaza in the backdrop of mounting casualties, unprecedented attacks on health care facilities.
During the recently concluded Executive Board meeting, Tedros said on Gaza:
“It is a very sad situation in Gaza nowhere and no one is safe. And we have been asking for a ceasefire for a long time now as WHO. Because the health services are now almost dysfunctional. Very few hospitals are working at a very low function. And from the war most of the deaths are actually the data are actually women and children [account for] 70% estimate in Gaza. And that's enough to start to stop the war and to agree on on a ceasefire. And I hope there will be a ceasefire and there will be a political solution. So that both the Palestinians and Israelis can be in peace, because they deserve peace and development. And from our side, we will continue to deliver to the best the best we can and your special session [EB in December 2023], I think was helpful on cursor, and I hope you will continue to give your attention and you know, push for a ceasefire….”
As the unfolding crisis in the Middle East shows, WHO has been in a tough position. Even as it appeals for ceasefire, safe passage to deliver essential health services, draws attention to incessant attacks on hospitals, some of WHO’s biggest member-state donors are also allies to Israel.
Some of the biggest countries have just cut funding to UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), on the back of terror allegations. UNRWA is the main humanitarian agency in Gaza.
Therefore, WHO’s Global Health and Peace Initiative (GHPI) that seeks to make a pathway between health and peace is even more compelling in the current context. To be sure, when the initiative was first proposed, worsening geopolitics with the post-pandemic wars in Ukraine and Palestine were not yet on the horizon.
While largely there is support for the initiative from countries, the jury is divided on whether the GHPI should be political, diplomatic or both.
This story reviews the decision at the EB, statements made by countries and also presents views from civil society and scholars who have examined this initiative.
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