Global functions at the World Health Organization

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Abstract
Pluralism in international health The framework of international health is no longer dominated by a few organisations, and it now involves numerous players. Health debates regularly arise at gatherings of the Group of Eight Industrialised Nations (G8) and other multilateral meetings. The World Economic Forum has hosted debates on health issues, ranging from vaccines and HIV/AIDS to tobacco and obesity. A private and not for profit sector has become an important force in international health as new organisations such as the Global Fund for Aids, Malaria and TB; the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; and pharmaceutical companies play larger roles. More than 50 private-public partnerships, such as the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, have been established to tackle specific challenges. International non-governmental organisations, including among others Médecins Sans Frontières, Oxfam, and CARE, now work together in health emergencies and disasters and take part in policy development, and in the past two decades the World Bank has had a greater role in health development.9 These changes have brought many benefits for health worldwide. This pluralism, however, has also led to an increasingly fragmented, reactive, and disparate agenda for international health that needs new leadership to convene and coordinate. In this context WHO has a unique coordinating function. Its constitution gives it alone the authority to develop and implement worldwide standards and initiatives to improve health.

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