WHO Paper Recommends ‘Governance for Health’ to Achieve SDGs

Health is perceived “as a major contributor to the other Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),” according to a paper, entitled ‘Health in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,' (EB138/14) prepared by the World Health Organization (WHO) for the 138th session of the Executive Board, to be held from 25-30 January 2016.. The paper highlights fundamental differences between the health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the health aspects of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and it recommends ways for WHO to play an increased role in governance for health.

According to the IISD, the paper promotes a “governance for health” approach, saying that deliberate action is necessary to influence governance in non-health areas, so as to promote and protect health. The SDGs' integrated, indivisible nature “provides legitimacy for WHO to pursue a more active role in governance for health, including in food security, sustainable energy, income inequality, migration, sustainable consumption and production (SCP), and trade and intellectual property.” In addition the SDGs present an opportunity to improve institutional arrangements for governance for health, in order to broaden the global health architecture towards arrangements that promote cross-border health security and produce global public goods.

It recommends that “WHO assume a more proactive role in shaping the global health architecture, including through aligning its priorities and financing with the 2030 Agenda and ensuring that its planning and budgeting respond to a wider set of health needs.” While WHO's core functions remain relevant, the balance between them “may need to be recalibrated” to align with the 2030 Agenda.

On follow-up and review, efforts on developing indicators, assessing progress and holding governments accountable have focused on individual targets and risk “ignoring the big picture, the interrelations between Goals and targets and, particularly, equity.” The paper suggests, moreover, that WHO play a more proactive role in measuring effectiveness and impact in health governance.

The paper notes that access to sexual and reproductive health care is included in the health goal, but that “sexual and reproductive rights, violence and discrimination against women and girls are dealt with elsewhere“ under goal 5. It also highlights a few gaps on health-related issues in the SDGs, for example the absence of targets on population aging and immunization, both if which it notes as being integral to achievement of at least four targets. Some important links are indirect, such as those between climate change and the spread of vector-borne diseases, and between sustainable consumption and non-communicable disease (NCDs) risk factors The paper also notes that antimicrobial resistance, moreover, which is a WHO priority, is only mentioned in the Declaration's health paragraph but not included as a target. 

(Editor’s note: During the negotiations on the SDGs and the post-2015 development agenda members of the Health in Post-2015 NGO Coalition worked hard, including making statements in various sessions to highlight the importance of the inclusion of anti-microbial resistance, and it was only a result of their persistence and that of a small number of governments such as Sweden and the United Kingdom that it was even included in the Declaration. This is a glaring omission that it was even possible to rectify in the work on indicators.)

For further information see: http://sd.iisd.org/news/who-paper-recommends-governance-for-health-to-achieve-sdgs/