Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Convergence is also reflected at the north-South level. the Global Fund (2008)
came into existence only once the G8 countries and the african leaders had endorsed
such an initiative at the 2001 Genoa Summit. as Un secretary general Kofi Annan
encouraged these constituencies over a series of encounters to finalise plans for the
initiative. It was necessary to have an international level organisation or figure carry
the idea of a global initiative for some time so that the different states could come to
a collaborative response.
Indeed, the form of collaboration that has occurred is a second theme. In the case
of global health initiatives, states participate in a global campaign or network-like
structure alongside other actors. anne-Marie Slaughter (2005, 284) explains the idea
of government 'networks', which parallel other global networks of actors, which she
identifies as terrorists and international criminal activity. For Slaughter, networks
create a 'world of governments, with all the different institutions that perform the
basic functions of governments … interacting both with each other domestically and
also with their foreign and supranational counterparts. States still exist in this world;
indeed, they are crucial actors. but they are “disaggregated”' and the 'result could be
a world crisscrossed by an increasingly dense web of networks.'
Although Slaughter focusses on networks of government officials in the
traditional legislative sense, the concept very much applies to health issues and
the collaboration found within the mechanism of a global health initiative among
state officials and representatives of international institutions, private foundations,
research centres, the private sector, and nongovernmental organisations (nGos).
Networks in the broad sense and global health initiatives more specifically bring
together all the international institutions and other global actors that should be
involved in resolving a problem without forming a rigid, heavy global structure. this
can be seen with global health initiatives as they work alongside the world bank, the
wHo, UNAIDS, and country teams on a specific disease. This network structure is
a mechanism that harnesses the potential gains from cooperation that globalisation
permits (Keohane 2001; cited in Slaughter 2005, 292).
the expansion of global health initiatives has been an excellent response to a
global problem of increased infectious disease, although it was much delayed. the
use of convergence and the network format have been important for this response
to be effective. However, this indicates that problems in the current global health
governance system may have to reach the level of security threat for serious global
action to be taken. the concept of planning and prevention on global health issues
has not been implanted into global governance. States are not yet formulating the
greater health challenges through their oDa strategies so that those challenges can
be pushed onto the global agenda. thus, the chance of them being addressed before
they reach crisis level is significantly lowered.
If the current global health governance system is more prone to responding to
emergencies than planning to prevent them, what improvements could be made? the
principle of convergence as effective traction and the principle of global networks as
a useful mode of cooperation can be useful in devising potential solutions.
