Abstract: The role of the World Health Organisation in the context of the United Nations system was clearly specified in Article 2 of its constitution: ‘to act as the directing and co-ordinating authority on international health work’. Yet new institutions, networks and operators are increasingly active at the global policy level, often with substantial funding and increasingly limited respect for traditional United Nations operators such as the WHO. One aspect of this is the way commercial interests operating at the international level seek to define global and national health standards and the focus of health policy at both global and national levels. It is also becoming important to consider the institutional background and legitimacy of global organisations, as well as the ways in which global agendas and actors are influenced and shaped by commercialisation and commercial policy priorities set in other sectors, such as trade or industry, outside the remit of ministries of health. This often undermines the remit of the WHO, the normative agency for global health policy. There are three different ways of understanding what agencies involved in global health policy actually do: first, establishing global regulatory measures and standards; second, setting broader global policy agendas for common global action (e.g. ‘health for all’ primary health care; HIV/AIDS) and third, determining how global policies for health either enhance or limit the scope for national health policies and the global distribution of health resources.
Publication Year: 2010
Publication Date: 2010-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 1
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