Between Washington and Beijing ... How did the World Health Organization fall into a policy trap?

 Overnight, the fifty-five-year-old Ethiopian microbiologist turned to the center of attention of the entire world, with hundreds of millions, and possibly billions, around the world piling up in front of the media in various forms to follow the briefings issued by the man who previously held the position of Ethiopian Foreign Minister before becoming later The first African to assume the presidency of the World Health Organization, and the first president of the organization to be named by election among a group of candidates.

With the panic that swept the world since the end of 2019, coinciding with the news about a new and mysterious virus outbreak in Wuhan, China, the statements of Tedros Adhanum Gebresus, the man who was always keen to go out to the media surrounded by a group of doctors and scientists to professionalize his briefings, a source Reassurance to the troubled world, but this reassurance quickly proved to be false and false after it was proven with certainty that the World Health Organization reduced, whether intentionally or shortly, the seriousness of the new epidemic, and adopted almost all the vocabulary of the Chinese novel that underestimated the ability of the virus to spread, which is what B in the failure of the world to prepare early and adequate to meet the new threat.

Until the end of December 2020, that is, more than a month and a half after the first cases were recorded in Wuhan, the World Health Organization did not issue any briefing on the reality of transmission (1) between humans, and the organization remained until the end of January The second tells the world persistently that it does not have any evidence of the possibility of transmission of the disease from one person to another, and although it did not send a team to China to investigate the circumstances and circumstances of the spread of the virus until mid-February, the organization continued to insist strongly that there was no reason to take measures To hinder travel and international trade, and even criticized the United States Because she did not listen to her instructions and closed her airspace, considering that the American decision is hasty and not based on real evidence.

Meanwhile, the WHO has continued to ignore China's restrictions on information related to the spread of the new epidemic including many repressive practices of the authorities, led by the arrest of a young doctor, Li Wen Liang, who was one of the first to warn of the seriousness of the new virus, other than ignoring it For successive calls to investigate what satellite imagery has revealed to mass graves in Hubei Province, the epicenter of the outbreak, images that provided early indications of Beijing may not be completely honest about the number of coronavirus victims.

Matters did not stop there. In its report (2) issued in February on the new Corona virus, the organization was keen to highly praise China’s efforts to contain the disease as it described it as “the most effective and active in facing any epidemic in history”, and the organization’s report was not satisfied. So, but he claimed that China “gained the world an invaluable time to create a defensive line to prevent the disease from spreading internationally”, and that world organization’s praise was a green light for Beijing to further its new narrative, as the force that successfully contained the epidemic in its infancy early, in When the developed countries are still in the West, led by Alo The United States, struggling to contain its effects.

But this account, promoted by China, apparently with WHO support (3), ignores the responsibility of bureaucratic practices, lack of transparency and strict control of the flow of information practiced by the Chinese authorities about the emergence and spread of the disease in the first place, and it also ignores Beijing's responsibility to waste time Precious could have been exploited by the world to implement serious protection measures to prevent the spread of the epidemic globally, which has caused many accusations of the organization to act as a trumpet for the Chinese system instead of independently checking the information and data contained in it, which contributed to the increased spread of the disease instead of It contains.

While the international organization did not declare a global pandemic Corona virus until March 12, estimates (4) indicate that the organization's reluctant performance deprived the world of at least three precious weeks that could have completely changed the epidemic response map to the point of reducing the number of infections by It may be as high as 95% compared to the current situation. As Francois Goodman, a researcher at the French Montaigne Institute for Policy, says, “The organization made two main mistakes: The first was when it failed to discover that infection was transmitted between people early, and the second was that it was not declared an international pandemic yet. 118,000 cases were recorded in 114 countries, which affected the country's policies L which follows the guidelines of the organization. "

Today, with the Corona virus recording 3.8 million infections and more than 260,000 deaths, in 212 countries and regions around the world, it appears that the credibility of the global organization, whose main task is to sound the global alarm when outbreaks of new infectious diseases and coordinate the global response to confront them, It is at stake, especially that the arrows of criticism are now extended by one of the largest contributing countries to the organization, led by the United States, which recently suspended its funding for the organization after accusing it of causing disease outbreaks due to its alignment with the Chinese regime, which are similar to what was issued by the Japanese Deputy Prime Minister. He called the one who joked in a speech to lawmakers in the country to rename the World Health Organization as the "Chinese Health Organization."

These criticism arrows were not only limited to the organization's performance as an entity, but also extended to challenge the integrity and biases of its Ethiopian president, Adhanum Gebresus, who today is accused of deliberately covering up the Chinese system for political reasons related to the influence that Beijing has in the policy of his country, Ethiopia, especially since the President of World Health He has a controversial history (5) of attempts to cover up outbreaks of epidemics in his own country, including accusations of covering up a cholera outbreak in Ethiopia in 2006, 2009 and 2011 when he held the position of Minister of Health in the country between 2005 and 2012.

From smoking to Ebola

Throughout its seven-decade history since its founding in 1948, the World Health Organization has faced on more than one occasion global accusations of falling into the trap of excessive bureaucracy and of submitting to political calculations and the interests of funders, despite the great successes achieved by the organization on some levels such as eradicating smallpox epidemics and plague Yellow fever and reduce the number of cases of polio globally, which are the main epidemics that necessitated the establishment of the organization from the beginning.

In the 1950s, for example, the World Health Organization failed to face the flood of false scientific research funded by the emperors of the tobacco industry, in light of the large companies in the industry financing health and research institutes and employing many doctors, researchers and scientists to defend their interests by underestimating the health effects of smoking, Ironically, many of these scientists were associated with the World Health Organization in one way or another, and one of the most prominent examples (6) of this is the case of a famous toxicologist who worked for the World Health Organization, and was included at the same time on the payroll of the tobacco giant Universal Philip Morris.

Criticism of the organization increased significantly during the 1980s, with its failure to play an effective role in facing new epidemics that emerged during this period, led by HIV, AIDS, and new respiratory diseases. In parallel, the organization began to suffer from stagnation and exacerbation of bureaucracy in its structures And, member states began complaining of suspicions about corruption and mismanagement within the UN.

But at the beginning of the twenty-first century, two important events occurred (7), which redefined the role of the World Health Organization as we know it today, the first of which occurred in 1998, with the rise of Norwegian politician and former Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland to the leadership of the international organization, so that the veteran politician exploits its diplomatic contacts and network The emerging Internet is in establishing and adopting a new and independent approach to public health away from the domination of national governments, where Brundtland has been credited with turning global violence into a public health issue and leading a global anti-smoking movement, after it made liberation from smoking addiction an evil Employment in the ranks of the International Organization for the first time.

As a result, by the time the second event, a respiratory epidemic that broke out in China at the end of 2002, and later known to the world as acute respiratory syndrome, SARS, the World Health Organization was ready to lead the health response to the world in an unprecedented way, although China was late As usual to report accurate information about the epidemic outbreak within its borders, the organization did not need Chinese information in any case, as it owned its own resources within the Chinese medical system, and was closely monitoring the information circulating on the epidemic on the specialized sites of Chinese doctors and even p Local media in the states, and in addition to this information, WHO officials later received an email from the son of a former WHO employee in China warning him of a strange infectious disease on which the authorities were secretive, killing more than 100 people, and at that moment the organization took a strong step Forward, the Chinese authorities faced their information and forced them to issue an official report on the disease within a few days of its spread.

Although the World Health Organization did not have an official authority to punish its members, Brundtland was not shy about doing so anyway, as it accused China on more than one occasion of intentionally withholding information about the organization, stressing that the epidemic could be contained earlier if it took place. Informing the organization of all developments, which put pressure on China to share the information it holds first hand, and by March 2003, when the disease began to spread to Hong Kong and Vietnam and later to Canada, (8) the World Health Organization issued for the first time in its history A travel ban was imposed on the affected areas, although they were not full As a de facto authority to impose the embargo, global health calls have paid off quickly, as the number of flights and passengers decreased once the organization issued its recommendations.

Today, the WHO response to the SARS epidemic is a great and historic success experience, as fewer than 1,000 people have died worldwide due to the disease despite its spread in 26 countries, and despite the fact that no vaccine has emerged so far, the non-drug measures proposed by the organization were such The early ban on travel, tracking and isolating infected cases, and the process of collecting huge information from multiple countries is sufficient to succeed efforts to contain the epidemic, and with this great success of the organization, the world was quick to demand legalization of the role played by global health during the SARS crisis, where the international health regulations to grant the international organization were updated The powers necessary to collect information about the spread of epidemics and lead the international response to them and to issue the necessary recommendations on travel and movement and declare a state of health emergency, but the document failed to give the organization the real power to compel countries to comply with its decisions, as countries such as Russia, India, China and even Brazil feared that an activity would be used The organization as an excuse by the United States and Western countries to interfere in its affairs.

But with Brundtland later leaving the WHO leadership, global health presence declined on the global stage, and she faced multiple condemnations from the press and society for inadequate treatment of health crises during the next decade, and this deficiency was clearly demonstrated during the swine flu outbreak in March. From 2009 from Mexico, where the organization's ability to coordinate a global response to the epidemic appeared to be much less than it was during the SARS crisis, and while the organization announced - by June of the same year - that swine flu had turned into a global pandemic, At a time when the disease had infected 28 thousand st P in 74 countries, the organization’s decisions were subject to great scrutiny after the official announcement of the end of the epidemic at the end of 2010, resulting in nearly 18 thousand deaths in 200 countries, and this time the organization (9) was accused of being responsible for a wave of global panic that was not appropriate, and mandated The global economy has huge unnecessary expenditures due to its overestimation of risk.

Criticism of the organization has intensified with the outbreak of the Ebola virus in West Africa in 2014, and this time the accusations leveled at the organization of rushing to the swine flu crisis seem to have caused it to slow down too much in warning of the epidemic, which led to its out of control, to the extent that the United States Many other countries had to deploy 5,000 military personnel in response to the request of the affected countries, and a United Nations committee was established to take charge of the epidemic instead of the World Health Organization. However, the epidemic killed more than 11,000 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, and a performance description was described. Organizer The World Health Organization later during the crisis was disastrous and tainted with corruption (10), especially after leaked documents later showed that the organization was late in declaring emergencies for fear that its decision would be seen as hostile action by governments in Guinea-Bissau, Côte d'Ivoire and Mali, and in response to pressure from these governments. Countries that have been unwilling to withstand the economic fallout from the epidemic, especially with the potential closure of the mining industry is a major source of income in these countries.

And it seems, the Ebola epidemic crisis put the last nail in the coffin of the WHO as a trusted international body, and completely destroyed the symbolic capital of the organization that accumulated it after its effective response to the SARS epidemic, and at the time it faces in the organization, under the Ethiopian leadership of Tedros, what would the pandemic be The largest in its history, its future seems unknown, especially in light of the unprecedented public pressure the organization is exposed to by the United States, and the organization is turning into a topic of international polarization rather than being the body that enjoys the confidence of everyone in the midst of the crisis.

Money rules

This polarization around the nature of the role of the World Health Organization today, the extent of policy impact on its technical and health decisions, revives the old debate about the historical context in which the organization was founded and the role of funds and donors in controlling their trends, even though the organization whose headquarters is in Geneva ( Switzerland), which has 6 regional offices and 150 country offices worldwide, was established at the end of the forties to provide advice in the field of public health, the organization faced historical accusations of working as a tool (11) for the Western colonial system and placing its health tasks second after the interests of financiers Behold the Westerners.

These accusations are of particular importance in view of the way in which the activities of the organization are funded, as the global health budget relies on a mixture of estimated funding (constituting only 20% of the total budget of the organization) from member states, which depends on the population of each country and the size of its gross domestic product In addition to the voluntary financing that constitutes 80% of the organization's sources of income, and most of it is from the conditional funds that the donors define as a mechanism for spending them in specific aspects of activity, and in return they exert pressure on the organization to overlook certain activities, such as the pressure exerted by the American sugar drink companies on Pain A system to undo its campaign that links sugar consumption with the global obesity epidemic and diabetes.

Beijing has clearly succeeded in transforming the WHO compass from absolute loyalty to the West to loyalty to China

Reuters

In light of this close association between the organization and the power and money structures around the world, many countries are racing to exploit their influence to control the identity of the president of the world organization, so the process of choosing the director of the organization often turns into a fierce battle in which countries display their muscles and their ability to make alliances To pave the path of the person you support is to the position, and it was evident during the selection process of the Director of the organization in 2006, with China aware of the reality of influence that the organization has enjoyed after the SARS crisis, Beijing has used (12) all its influence papers to pass the appointment of Canadian doctor of origin Chinese what Margaret Chan as director of the organization, before China later increased its voluntary share in global health financing and intensified its diplomatic activity in health care, especially in Africa, coinciding with the actual launch of the Belt and Road Initiative in 2015.

Since then, it is clear that Beijing has succeeded in converting the Compass (13) WHO from absolute loyalty to the West to loyalty to China, which was confirmed with the election of the Ethiopian Tidros Gebresus to head the organization in 2017, but the recent Corona crisis highlighted the risks of penetration Chinese organization responsible for the global health response against epidemics and catastrophic damage caused by putting the fate of the world in the hands of a opaque, oppressive regime like Beijing, which prompted the world to put the political impact of the World Health Organization on the table again.

Once again, the paper was present, but this time in the form of successive American threats to cut off funding to the organization, threats that turned into reality with the Trump administration suspending its $ 123 million annual contribution to the organization’s budget, which puts additional pressure on an organization that is already suffering. Of constant funding shortages, with a budget that does not exceed the budget of a large hospital in Europe or the United States, but the American response may prove to be shortsighted and prompt the International Organization to bet more on Beijing's support, which provides $ 86 million to the organization annually, as a safer alternative to The Americans, but even if the global health succeeded in securing the lost financial support from Beijing, or even managed to dissuade the United States from its decision to suspend the support, the fact that cannot be ignored remains that the credibility of the international organization was damaged during the current crisis that cannot be repaired soon, Money alone would do nothing to change that.