Global Health Initiatives: A Healthy Governance Response? - Innovation in Global Health Governance - page 291

a development issue as well as a security question. with the anthrax scare after
September 11, 2001, fears of the west nile virus being used as a bioterrorism weapon,
the sharp increase in death from HIv/aIDS in 1998, and the threat of an influenza
pandemic, policy makers and experts took into account the problem of infectious
disease and its impact on trade, economics, social stability, and concern for their
citizens at home and interests abroad. 4 with this conception of disease as a threat,
even security agencies such as the U.S. central Intelligence agency (cIa) began to
examine the needs of the developing world. although infectious diseases can directly
affect large populations, without the convergence of security and development at a
time when the security paradigm is overwhelming a global response may not have
been as prominent as it currently is. linking the threat to other social and economic
priorities has galvanised action and placed the issue high on the global agenda.
a further factor that explains the recent popularity of global health initiative is
the onset of the Un's (2005b) Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), specifically
MDG no. 6, which is to 'combat HIv/aIDS, malaria and other diseases'. as the
international community signed on to the Millennium Declaration in 2000, it propelled
the challenge of eradicating infectious disease to the top of the development agenda. It
also indicated that global strategies to address development issues were possible. thus,
global health initiatives became a natural extension of a host of other components.
while this list of reasons for the rise in global health initiatives is not exhaustive,
it indicates a build-up at the global level of the need to address infectious disease
outside the established mechanisms. In essence, the rise in disease during the several
decades that development agencies tended to omit health from their strategies, the
convergence of the security and development agendas on disease, and the inclusion
of infectious disease in the MDGs have pushed health onto the global agenda, and
the response of initiatives specifically targeting disease reverberates loudest through
the system of health governance.
The Strengths of Global Health Initiatives
there are several advantages to having a mechanism such as a global health initiative
to address issues of infectious disease. 5 these positive features contribute to the
evolving governance system on health discussed below.
Elevate the Issue
Global health initiatives place infectious diseases front and centre at the global level.
a well-formulated initiative will draw the attention of state, private sector, and civil
society leaders to acknowledge the devastation caused by infectious disease and
will compel them to act, while it also provides a route and vehicle for action. once
a global health initiative is established, it is not left to the whim of certain ministries
or administrators to determine the extent of efforts to eradicate a disease. rather, it
solidifies a global consensus that the issue should be elevated to the top of the global
agenda until major improvements are achieved. this has been particularly important
in the case of HIv/aIDS. For years, the problem was not factored into development