How is the Global Polio Eradication Initiative governed?

Loading...

Do curso por The State University of New York

Global Health Diplomacy

48 classificações

The State University of New York

Global Health Diplomacy

48 classificações

Having completed this course, learners will be able to: Describe and analyze the opportunities, challenges and limits of Global Health Diplomacy. Examine the diplomatic, financial, and geopolitical context that underlies global health decision-making. Explain the role of the many players in the space, including governments, philanthropists, and multilateral institutions . Course Objective The field of global health is often thought of purely in medical or public health terms, but there are important geopolitical and policy dimensions of global health that underlie programmatic responses to global health challenges. By completing this course, learners will be able to explain the specific institutions and initiatives that are fundamental to current global health diplomacy activities and functions, and how these influence global health outcomes. Learners will further be able to summarize real-world examples where global health diplomacy either helped or limited global health outcomes, and explain the reasons for those outcomes.

Na lição

What is global health governance and how does it work?

This module begins with defining the term “global health governance” and goes on to provide multiple case studies of the different types of governance mechanisms.

How is the Global Polio Eradication Initiative governed?5:08

Conheça os instrutores

Gabrielle Fitzgerald
Executive in philanthropy and global health
Peter Small
Founding Director
Global Health Institute, Stony Brook University

In this module on global health governance, we're discussing the wide

range of governance models being used for various organizations and initiatives.

In this lesson, we're going to talk about the Global Polio Eradication Initiative,

or GPEI, which is one of the most ambitious and

wide-reaching global health initiatives in recent years.

It has reduced polio cases by 99% and has an annual budget of $1 billion.

Let's go back to 1988 when the World Health Assembly voted on

a resolution vowing to eradicate polio by 2000.

At that time, polio paralyzed more than 1,000 children every day.

What's interesting and unusual about this WHA resolution is that it

was championed by a civil society organization, Rotary International.

Which prioritized polio eradication for their organization and

had pledged to raise $120 million to vaccinate children against polio.

Once this resolution was approved by the World Health Assembly,

the Global Polio Eradication Initiative was created.

GPEI was housed at WHO, and

its leader reports to the Director General of the World Health Organization.

In addition to the WHO, the Initiative also included UNICEF, the US Centers for

Disease Control and Rotary International.

These groups called themselves the spearheading partners and

together they made all decisions about the polio program.

The original goal was for polio to be eradicated by 2000.

While cases decreased significantly, unfortunately,

that milestone was missed and so were the next several.

The program was heavily criticized for not achieving its goals and

was running out of funding.

In 2007, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

announced that it would contribute $100 million toward the eradication of polio.

At the time, it was believed that polio could be eradicated within five years.

Within the next few years,

the polio program budget reached a steady state of $1 billion a year.

Yet despite the magnitude of this budget,

the program was still being governed by the four original spearheading partners.

It was an unusual governance dynamic,

as the four organizations who were implementing the work and managing

the budget were the same organizations charged with overseeing their program.

The donors who contributed the funding and the countries where the work was being

performed had no formal say in the program's overall governance.

Major funders of the polio program, including the United States,

the United Kingdom, and the Gates Foundation, pushed for

stronger governance and a number of new entities were created.

The first is the Polio Oversight Board, which includes leaders from

the original four spearheading partners plus the Gates Foundation.

This group meets quarterly with the defined goals of providing operational

oversight and high level accountability across the GPEI partnership.

Unfortunately, this oversight board still has the same governance challenge of

the previous mechanism, as the board is only comprised of five organizations

who are heavily involved in the day to day execution of the program.

The second new entity is the Global Polio Partners Group, called the PPG.

The PPG serves as a stakeholder voice for the GPEI and

reports the results to the Polio Oversight Board.

The addition of this group has expanded the input given to polio decision

makers so that a wide range of organizations who are involved in polio,

including donor and endemic country governments, can contribute.

However, the group is somewhat informal in nature and

its recommendations are non-binding.

A third group that was established was the Independent Monitoring Board or IMB.

While this group is funded out of the GPEI budget,

it operates independently and issues regular reports with very candid

assessments of GPEI's progress toward eradicating polio and

advises on course corrections or changes that the program needs to make.

While the IMB has been a big improvement in transparency and

independence in the polio governance landscape,

its mandate is limited only to certain GPEI activities.

And it has no authority to make changes, only provides a bully pulpit for

making recommendations.

In summary,

while these additional governance mechanisms have certainly strengthened and

broadened the participation and oversight of the polio program.

The governance of GPEI would still benefit from adopting some of the best practices

in governance from other organizations in the global health sector.

Now let's take a moment to review what we have learned so far.

Explore nosso catálogo

Registre-se gratuitamente e obtenha recomendações, atualizações e ofertas personalizadas.

O Coursera proporciona acesso universal à melhor educação do mundo fazendo parcerias com as melhores universidades e organizações para oferecer cursos on-line.

© 2019 Coursera Inc. Todos os direitos reservados.

Baixar na App Store

Baixar no Google Play