Understanding global security - Peter Hough

HEALTH THREATS TO SECURITY
of minimizing human suffering. Despite some reservations and concerns, Save the
Children still concluded in their study that ‘GAVI was generally seen as a positive
development in all four countries (LSHTM 2002: 44). Similarly, Brugha and Walt
writing in the British Medical Journal accepted that: ‘It is only through a global fund
that this kind of concerted global action between major corporate and public sector
players can be achieved’ (Brugha and Walt 2001: 154). That business is driven by
profit and that market forces are not always compatible with the public good is
obvious and something to be safeguarded against in politics but, if the public good
can be served by uniting actors with disparate reasons for achieving a similar goal,
then socially conscious politicians should not instinctively dismiss such alliances.
Other UN agencies contributing to global health
UNAIDS was set up as a programme of the WHO in 1986 in response to the spread
of the new disease along similar lines to its other disease fighting arms. In 1996, however,
UNAIDS became a UN programme in its own right co-sponsored by the
WHO, the World Bank, UNESCO, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA),
UNDP, United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) and (later) United Nations Office
on Drugs and Crime (UNDCP). This reflected the scale of the threat posed by AIDS,
necessitating a response beyond the means of the WHO, but also, according to some,
a lack of faith in the WHO to lead such a venture (Godlee 1994: 1494–1495). UNAIDS
is based in Geneva with a Secretariat of 129, divided between the headquarters
and various country offices. It is the first UN organ to include pressure group representatives
in its executive, although voting rights in the Programme Coordinating
Board are restricted to the 22 government representatives, elected by ECOSOC
according to geographical quotas. The seven co-sponsors also have permanent
representation on the board without voting rights and many of their field workers
carry out UNAIDS work in developing countries. UNAIDS has a modest annual
budget of $60 million but its role is that of a ‘catalyst and coordinator on AIDS rather
than as a direct funding or implementing agency’ (UNAIDS 2002: 2).
UNAIDS
The World Bank from the outset was intended to play a role in promoting public
health in LDCs through its Health, Nutrition and Population division (HNP), although
it was not until 1970 that it granted a loan via this arm of its organization (Abbasi
1999). By the 1990s, however, the HNP was outstripping the WHO in its outlay on
projects (Stott 1999). The 1993 World Development Report ‘Investing in Health’
heralded this new direction for the World Bank, inspired by a desire to be more
compassionate in its development projects and the pragmatic logic that economic
growth is more likely in a healthy population.
World Bank
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