Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
governance and provides data and analysis directly to the wHo. after the challenges
of SarS and HIv/aIDS, improved surveillance and reporting, transparency, and
private and public criticism—rather than secrecy, silence, and shame—have become
the order of the day. Mobile communication and training for crisis communication
have been expanded. the Global Public Health Intelligence network (GPHIn) is
now in place. and the wHo holds public hearings, face to face and on the internet.
cooperation and coordination are following. there is greater clarity about the
roles of the relevant actors. SarS saw the centralisation of decision making at the
national level in canada and at the international level in the wHo, as bennett and
Kamradt-Scott emphasise. SarS and avian influenza have led to greater regional
cooperation among the Pacific Rim countries. The WHO, the Food and agriculture
Organization (FAO), and the world organisation for animal Health (oIe) have
together produced a master plan for animal health, as white and banda note. Global
health initiatives are producing many coordinated, coherent campaigns to attack
individual diseases, providing a focal point for many to mobilise, contribute, and
monitor, as Khoubessarian charts. the new concept and process of health diplomacy
are breeding coherence among politically feasible, economically attractive,
epidemiologically informed, and ethically sound measures, as Dal, Sunderland, and
Drager show.
compliance is also seeing innovation, if in an uneven way. Global health
initiatives make monitoring of commitments and results easier, although not
adequately yet. Methods to measure the health impacts of trade and trade agreements
are well behind the comparable work in the field of trade and the environment
(Kirton and Maclaren 2002). the human right to health is not fully monitored. In
the G8, priority placement and one-year timetables improve compliance, but these
techniques are rarely used. and in tobacco, where many have signed but few have
ratified the Fctc, the compliance gap remains.
capacity has been infused by innovation in several ways. In the case of
SarS, the wHo displayed adaptive resilience by rapidly redeploying resources
to combat the disease. In both china and canada, much new capacity was created
during and in the wake of the disease, as Price-Smith, and Huang as well as bennett
describe in detail. In Brazil, the fight against HIv/aIDS creatively called forth new
forms of capacity from civil society.
an increase in surplus capacity is also evident, beyond the increase in the monies
raised for old instruments such as oDa. one such innovation is debt relief for the
poorest countries on condition that they use the forgiven payments to improve their
citizens' health. Another is the way the wHo called upon its residual constitutional
authority to respond to SarS. but the underlying healthcare systems of many
countries remain underfunded and ill designed, as Khoubessarian and others note
(see, for example, Garrett 2007). and the 2007 G8 summit in Heiligendamm,
Germany, was driven off its intended focus on strengthening such healthcare systems
by the popular demand and political appeal of mobilising yet more money for a few
high-profile diseases. Dealing more creatively with aid absorption and long-term
targeting are tasks that remain (Fratianni, Savona, and Kirton 2007).
