Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
nongovernmental sources of epidemiological information that helped contain the
epidemic (Fidler 2004b). not surprisingly, the wHo has struggled for years to make
'germ governance' more inclusive—and effective—by relying on nongovernmental
or civil society organisations to challenge the state's monopoly on public health.
Governments alone cannot handle global microbial threats (Fidler 2004b).
However, donor governments and international agencies often assume, wrongly,
that developing countries have a civil society network capable of participating in
policy formulation, monitoring, and implementation (Kuchenbecker 2004). Yet
the nongovernmental sector in many recipient countries is weak or subordinated
and it cannot make up for the weaknesses in state capacity. this means that health
investment must be coupled with strategies to develop a local civil society capable
of administering that aid.
this great risk of avian influenza and similar global challenges represent an
opportunity to build on the work of the high-level panel on Un and civil society,
chaired by former Brazilian president Fernando Henrique cardoso. this initiative
should begin by looking at the issue of trust in civil, corporate, and public actors
and capacity building. It should explore the role of the private sector in seeding civil
society organisations in countries where they would not otherwise flourish (such as
through the International Ministerial Conference on Avian and Pandemic Influenza
that was held in bamako in 2006 and the subsequent technical meeting held in new
Delhi in 2007). at the same time, civil society actors, given their non-elected status,
also need to be more self-critical and accountable. the response to the 2004 asian
tsunami brought into sharp relief the lack of coordination and the mandate creep
of multilateral agencies. It showed equally that both the best and the worst of civil
society organisations can tarnish the credibility of all. Ultimately, it eroded their
ability to work effectively with full trust.
Adding the Building Blocs: Policy Harmonisation and Institutionalisation
as a basic step, it is necessary to address right at the start a series of institutional
deficits, jurisdictional overlaps, and procedural gaps.
First, there is a regulatory and policy vacuum that spans human and animal
health and agriculture. It must be replaced by an institutionalised, law-based (and
thus enforceable) regulatory framework that governs bio-security, vaccination, the
administration of antibiotics, animal movement, border control, the culling and
disposal of carcasses, farmer compensation, the restructuring of the poultry industry,
and so on. Harmonisation must occur within government bureaucracies as well as
across government agencies on the basis of the best practices available.
Ultimately, the institutional deficit between public and animal health services
needs to be resolved. It is no coincidence that the countries most affected by HPaI are
the ones with deficient veterinary services, farm bio-security measures, and animal
disease information systems (Fao and oeI 2005a). In other cases, there is no clear
division of labour between the principal international agencies, which costs millions
of dollars every year in duplication. civil society should be empowered to work
