Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
have established some of the largest budgets among such campaigns and have been
found to be sustainable over time. Some of the budgets are even comparable to
the oDa budgets of rich countries. Support from the participating industrialised
countries comes directly from their oDa budgets. thus, far from being detached,
the global initiative mechanism is recognised and linked to the oDa policies of
these countries. this brings both strengths and weaknesses to the overall system
of global health governance.
Why Global Health Initiatives?
the development and increase of global health initiatives in the new millennium
are attributable to a series of pushes and pulls at the international level that have
been accentuated over the past few decades. these factors provide an explanation
of why an increased response concerning health issues was necessary, as well as
why a global health mechanism in particular, as opposed to the traditional oDa
mechanism, was ideal for taking on the challenge in the developing world. these
factors and changes also explain how the need to respond to infectious diseases was
placed as a priority on the global agenda.
the most direct push for global health initiatives is the challenge of an unusually
large increase in new infectious diseases. according to one report, 'since 1973, more
than 30 previously unknown diseases associated with viruses and bacteria have
emerged. examples include: ebola virus (1977); legionnaires' disease (1977);
E.
coli
0157:H7-associated hemolytic uremic syndrome (1982); HIv/aIDS (1981);
Hepatitis C (1989); variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (1996); and H5N1 Influenza A
or avian flu (1997) … As well, some known infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis,
have re-emerged in vulnerable populations' (national advisory committee on
SarS and Public Health 2003, 2). Such a spike in infectious disease around the
world should naturally have a corresponding intensified global response. Since
specialised international campaigns to eradicate disease were reasonably successful
with smallpox and polio, the global governance system could build on this model to
confront the emergence of new diseases.
another reason that global health initiatives are now over preferred mechanism
in comparison to traditional responses is the inadequacy of development agencies
during the 1980s and '90s in recognising the urgency of health problems. For many
years oDa strategies did not place health at the top of their priority list when assisting
developing countries while, in retrospect, problems galloped at an intense pace. as
Sachs and others highlighted in the 1990s, aid agencies were failing in terms of
addressing malaria, HIv/aIDS, and other health issues. according to him (2005,
202), those implementing development policy knew 'very little about public health,
and traditionally they pay almost no attention to whether health spending in their
client countries is $10 or $100 or $1,000 or more per person'. thus, in the 1990s
hundreds of millions of dollars annually were earmarked to meet the challenge of
infectious diseases, whereas now as much as US$8 billion is spent on HIv/aIDS
