International governmental organizations in the global health governance system: the leading role of the World Health Organization

Abstract

Issues of human health protection have gradually been integrated into the agenda of specialized UN agencies and other international intergovernmental organizations in the context of ensuring the achievement of sustainable development goals, as well as the development of effective measures to curb the formation of threats to human and state security in the field of health care.Given the institutional changes in global health governance that have taken place over the past two decades and, accordingly, the impact of the changing conditions and context of international governmental organizations (IGOs) on their interaction with other actors and their performance of changed functions in the world, that is globalizing, there is an increase in the role of IGOs in the process of political globalization due to the growing relevance of political processes at the world level. However, due to the inflexibility of the organizational settings of many IMUs in general and the lack of leadership of more influential actors and their hesitant response to increasing epidemics, particularly in developing countries, there was an opportunity for actors who do not usually have much decision-making authority. and law, to set the agenda and influence global policy in this area. Civil society organizations (CSOs) operated in the discursive field of global health governance, as well as at relevant interfaces, and strengthened their discursive power through opportunities for access to medicines. This particular area of global governance was to some extent already «occupied» by the usually weak participants in the global power structure, when more powerful players – IGOs – re-entered this field.This article focuses on the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Bank and the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) in global health governance, particularly in the fight against HIV/AIDS, and analyzes the interaction and the relationship between them, as well as with other relevant global health actors.