At the roots of the world health organization's challenges: Politics and regionalization

E. Fee, M. Cueto and T.M. Brown

American Journal of Public Health, 2016, vol. 106, issue 11, 1912-1917

Abstract: The World Health Organization's (WHO's) leadership challenges can be traced to its first decades of existence. Central to its governance and practice is regionalization: The division of its member countries into regions, each representing 1 geographical or cultural area. The particular composition of each region has varied over time-reflecting political divisions and especially decolonization. Currently, the 194 member countries belong to 6 regions: The Americas (35 countries), Europe (53 countries), the Eastern Mediterranean (21 countries), South-East Asia (11 countries), the WesternPacific (27 countries), and Africa (47 countries). The regions have considerable autonomy with their own leadership, budget, and priorities. This regional organization has been controversial since its beginnings in the first days of WHO, when representatives of the European countries believed that each country should have a direct relationship with the headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, whereas others (especially the United States) argued in favor of the regionalization plan. Over time, regional directors have inevitably challenged the WHO directors-general over their degree of autonomy, responsibilities and duties, budgets, and national composition; similar tensions have occurred within regions. This article traces the historical roots of these challenges.

Keywords: Africa; Asia; budget; leadership; politics; regionalization; responsibility; Switzerland; tension; United States; world health organization; developed country; developing country; Eastern Europe; economics; global health; history; human; organization and management; USSR; world health organization, Developed Countries; Developing Countries; Europe, Eastern; Global Health; History, 20th Century; Humans; Politics; United States; USSR; World Health Organization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.2105/AJPH.2016.303480

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:10.2105/ajph.2016.303480_4

DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2016.303480

Access Statistics for this article

American Journal of Public Health is currently edited by Alfredo Morabia

More articles in American Journal of Public Health from American Public Health Association
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Christopher F Baum ().