UN Organisations: Health for All and All for Health Care Systems?

Abstract

International organisations have a key role in global discourses about various kinds of policy issues, as well as potentially influencing national social and health policymaking by other means. This is also the case with regard to concepts and prescriptions for health care systems. This chapter focuses on ideas and activities related to health care systems that have been developed by a wide array of international organisations within the UN system. It discusses respective engagements, roles, competences and power of a number of agencies within a complex and, at times, chaotic institutional setting. The chapter first introduces and discusses some of the UN bodies on more general issues of social development; namely, the UNDP, the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) and the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). The chapter then discusses the role of the WHO (section 2.4) as it tackles health care systems as part of a broader mandate to improve health globally. The shift over time in the significance of the WHO’s role in questions concerning health care systems is particularly important, as it is only one expression of the difficult role the WHO is given, with great tasks and expectations, on the one hand, and notoriously limited funding, on the other.