Outsourcing: how to reform WHO for the 21st century

Global health security: where is the data to inform health system strengthening?

“…How should these data be collected and curated? The scope of effort and cost of ensuring the currency and completeness of such a complex global data set is enormous and, as recently argued in BMJ Global Health 9 and in the Lancet , 10 potentially beyond the operational capabilities of the WHO. Yet the WHO has a critical role to play in terms of exercising normative authority.…”

The financial sustainability of the World Health Organization and the political economy of global health governance: a review of funding proposals

“…Scholars have reiterated that WHO is overstressed with too broad a mandate and set of responsibilities, and that there is urgent need for protection of WHO’s core functions [ 63 , 66 ] and to narrow the organisational focus [ 67 ]. This issue was initially recognized in 1997, when the DG announced that “WHO would concentrate its resources on a smaller number of health issues, but there have been only half-hearted efforts towards the constitutional reform that would make such a change in priorities possible.…”

“…The big donor countries argued that WHO should instead focus on its normative activities [ 58 ]. Other scholars have also highlighted the need for WHO to narrow its focus [ 61 , 67 ] for specified amount of time and resources [ 69 ]. For example, Collier proposed narrowing WHO’s focus to five core areas: health development, health security, strengthening health systems and institutions, generating evidence on health trends and determinants, and convening for better health [ 70 ].…”

“…One suggestion is for WHO to concentrate exclusively on setting standards - the so-called normative functions- and to leave direct involvement in technical matters, also known as technical cooperation—to other agencies [ 71 , 72 ]. A more recent reform model proposes outsourcing of key activities, thus leveraging the expertise of global health organisations beyond WHO [ 67 ]. The authors of this propositions argue that the WHO should aim to out- source a number of its functions to other global agencies that are already leading the way such as the Global Fund and GAVI.…”

World Health Organization and the search for accountability: a critical analysis of the new framework of engagement with non-state actors

“…However, there are complaints about the systematic recruitment of directors of the Gates Foundation by WHO, which led Dominique Kerouedan 39 (p. 67) to say: "if the world health is now dominated by Bill Gates, then there is no chance that it will be global: his philanthropy does not radiate beyond some infectious diseases", which are those "perceived as threats to others, and preferably for the richest of the planet". It should be mentioned that when talking about WHO reform some authors have even defended that a wide range of functions presently carried out by WHO should be "outsourced" to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Médicins Sans Frontières, or national regulatory agencies 40 .…”