A couple of the rings to the point. Donald trump took only these historic sent down until the job only takes to beat. The special coverage on aljazeera. Is the World Health Organization on life support its response to the coronavirus demick is to be scrutinized by a number states with calls for change growing louder all the lessons to learn for the next. This is inside story. Hello welcome to the program on birds. The coronavirus pandemic is one of the Biggest Challenges the World Health Organization has ever faced its also receiving both praise and criticism for how its dealing with the crisis critics say the w. H. O. Acted too slow to declare a pandemic its Member States voted unanimously for an independent inquiry into the Global Response to covert 19 and the un bodies role its director general welcomes the review i will initiate such an evaluation earliest appropriate moment we welcome any initiative to strings in Global Security and to strengthen doubly to your eyes on ways that related job remains fully committed to transparency accountability and Continuous Improvement of the w h os biggest donor is also its loud as critic the us president is threatening to cut all funding unless he sees what he calls substantive improvements in 30 days donald trump says the organization has failed to hold leaders in china to account even though he himself praised both the w. H. O. And the Chinese Government at the start of the outbreak the us has the worlds highest number of corona virus infections and deaths the European Commission president says now isnt the time to trade blame in times like these the greatest act of courage is to play as a team. This does not mean that once the dust will have settled and once we have delivered turnout pledged to beat this virus we should not be looking to raise to modernize the w. H. O. To see what should be done for the w. H. Will to continue to live up to the new challenges because we need multilateral approaches might lead us for now focus on our most immediate challenge World Health Organization was created by the United Nations 72 years ago its mandate to Shape InternationalHealth Policies trace and advise on how to manage epidemics and pandemics based in geneva in switzerland its 194 Member States elect the director general and vote on policy they also help fund the 4 and a half 1000000000. 00 budget for the current su years the w. H. O. Also realizing creasing li on private donors who can influence priorities it was criticised for failing to take command after an outbreak of ebola in 2014 its director general pledged to shake up the w. H. O. When he was elected 3 years ago. Lets bring in our guests from burnaby British Columbia in canada is kelly levy a professor of Global Health policy at Simon Fraser University she also cofounded the w. H. O. Collaborating sensor on Global Change and health from dulles in the United States jeremy youd a specialist in Global Health politics and the dean of the college of liberal arts at the university of minnesota and in johannesburg in south africa dr regina o. C. Is a medical doctor an Infectious Disease specialist at the Aurum Institute welcome to all if i can start with you kelly how is the w. H. O. Struggled with managing the coronavirus pandemic or are its members just not listening were going to stand what it is designed to do and at the early stages very we will need to find out whether its done it in a timely manner but essentially what its designed to do is to collect intelligence about outbreaks and then share that information with Member States and it by says those Member States what it should do in response now the question is did it do it in a timely manner and it never states respond in a timely manner those are the questions i think we need to ask jeremy what do you think. Has the respondent in a timely manner to the w. H. To the coronavirus outbreak. I think kelly is absolutely right in that the w. H. O. Cant mandate policy cant force states to do it in but it can be there to bring in information but then also disseminate that information and provide out to members that its what those Member States then decide to do with it is up to them and so its so far it seems like theyve done point out theyve done kind of what theyre designed to do whether or not thats been the most of active is something that i think will be really important to figure out as we do this independent review after the pandemic passes in south africa how has the coronavirus how is the w h os response to the coronavirus been seen there regina. Well i think that generally the debate so in countries that have less resources are seen as a provider of normative guidance guidelines too and things that people can use to be able to improve their responses and i think that from that perspective before thats mandate there are lots of different tools available on its website it is provided information on how best to manage and of course as the other panelist said its time its up to the countries to figure out what they want to do and typically south africa is quite in terms of health is quite a resource rich environment because of a lot of social a lot of Civil Society and experts in health and research who are already working at practicing here so we also have our own Key Opinion Leaders that we listen to and who are generating models that are specific to south africa however for other countries where this is not available there is a push so part called in the wheel that allows for Public Health response kelly the has been criticism of the w. H. O. That hes been too deferential perhaps to china that hes not exercised leadership right at the start of all of this and it was slow. To call it a pandemic because of fear of china is that a fact criticism well who find out and i think with this investigation i think whats important to recognize it w. H. O. Has to work with consensus with Member States it cannot enforce a lot of its decisions it has to work and get cooperation so this what seems like deferential behavior towards china is probably diplomacy in action trying to get the chinese to cooperate as much as possible provide information and to really you know work with every show beaches very reluctant to call out Member States its traditionally been very you know reticent to do that and i think thats what weve seen so other supersedes that has been too deferential thats just m. H. O. In action jeremy were told that kelly mentions how the w. H. O. Is reluctant to call out states but in a pandemic like this dont you need to be more assertive. Its one of the quandaries an organization like the w. H. O. Faces because it doesnt have all the same sort of leverage you know its it cant sanction states it cant threaten to invade states it doesnt have those sorts of tools of diplomacy so what it can do is it can think we could name and shame the state we could publicly call it out and chastise it or we could try to have a more coopted relationship and when youve got a country where a pandemic seems to be starting i think that the calculation of the w. H. O. Made was its probably going to be to our advantage were probably going to get more and better information from the Chinese Government if we are working with them if we are trying to provide a tool and so i so i completely understand the criticism i just dont know that given the structures of the w. H. O. And the powers that the Member States have given to the dead i dont know how much more it was going to be able to force china to do anything and to take other sorts of actions would you want to see a more assertive w. H. O. Do you do you see the criticism of criticism has been coming from i think you know that theres always criticism and i think there are always things that can be modified i think that the investigation will be welcome and you know organizations have to grow and evolve as things change you know when the vehicle started out there very soon the diseases that he was ticking tear off now there is stuff there is hiv theres the peoples life expectancies have come up theres none to the couple diseases that have increased in many countries that rely on doubly so yeah its become a massive undertaking and i think that its always good to reexamine what the purposes and how best to achieve that however i do like the aspects that Member States are. Invited for collaboration and also that its an Inclusive Party but that its not necessarily coercive and i think that thats something that is to be appreciated when yet there was even end of some of the advice i think that a lot of countries are able to make their own decisions and decide how they want to address it and issues within their countries are within the boundaries of their of their context and i think thats completely acceptable for many places kelly through the International Health regulations the w. H. O. Has got hasnt some moral authority to sort of demand of states whites doing this why its putting trial restrictions in here why its stopping people going from a to b. It hasnt really used those tools do you think has it could it use those more effectively has it been more too timid. The International Health regulations is a very important instrument its a legal treaty that Member States signing up to and they are obliged to comply with and there hasnt been a lot of compliance with it in this outbreak so yes the b. H. O. Could you know can call out Member States as weve discussed already and request that countries comply but theres no enforcement mechanism and this is what we just sort of mentioned that there isnt say equivalent of what the World Trade Organization has which are countermeasures so if the country decides that it doesnt want to comply with the decision of the t. O then what happens is that there are Counter Measures there are terrorists imposed on a country that isnt complying that the show doesnt have that kind of enforcement mechanism so the question is do we need to give. More teeth more sort of maybe carrots and sticks that will make Member States comply so that its kind of unfair to ask that we chose to sort of use methods that it actually doesnt have the capacity to do it jeremy to the w. H. O. Does generally get praised for its medical expertise its scientific guidance but tries to avoid the politics but health is political isnt it i mean should it have more teeth the w. H. O. Shopped your you know youre at play right health is inherently political and thats one of the reasons that i think the current director general one of the things that he was able to campaign on when he was campaigning for this position is that not only does he have this Health Background but he also served as the foreign minister of ethiopia so he has both sort of the health side of things and the political the diplomatic side i did things and you know on a personal level yes i think that giving more teeth to the w. H. O. Would probably be a good thing but the same time we have to recognise that to do that it means that states would be giving up some degree of sovereignty. Perhaps and their willingness to do that is something that we havent yet seen and the w. H. O. Is ultimately a creature of its members states the Member States are the ones who make the decisions about what powers they want to give or not give to the organization and so if we are going to do that there needs to be some sort of movement with among the Member States and willingness to to be more deferential to w. H. O. And we havent yet seen that and we havent yet seen that sort of leadership among the members states arise regina you know as you know in south africa of course health is very much a politicized issue like in many countries would you like to see the w. H. O. Be a bit braver in touching the politics of health care. Well i think its a balance you know i think that you also want to have drive political will internally and not have it as a stick coming from an external source as i think back the biggest most successful countries that we have especially in the developing world is where the actual politicians and the people in charge have decided that Health Parity and ive been able to push that with the help of you know tools and and expertise they get from the b. H. O. So i think its a bit risky to become a big to politicize and also to try to and source things to radically because i think that that could also put some people off and you could lose the ground of the footing that you had in countries where you know maybe there be some tenuous political environments and youve been trying to navigate those while obviously keep focusing on the health of the population and all of a sudden youre no longer invited in and people suffer so i think those are the considerations that the docket also has to and the International Community at large usually has to take into consideration in order to make decisions like that kellies is the w. H. O. Trying to do too much of the moment his original remit was womens and womens and Childrens Health and nutrition sanitation malaria tb and now it now is involved in g. M. Foods a Climate Change road safety should it narrow again its focus now that supreme you know question i i think it should but the question is what to be dropped so it does everything from aids to seek as i often describe it and you know the question is what is less important and thats when it gets really difficult because all of these issues are very important and its a World Health Organization its not a World Disease Organization so what it means is that it has to you know to fill a mandate that is very broad and if you look at the constitution it really set out a very broad definition of health not just the absence of disease so were thinking about you know health in a very broad social determinants of health way but also for. 194 countries which are very very diverse so we have a huge menu of things to do this is been a big challenge for to know and you know theres been lots of discussions about how do we narrow this how do we set priorities its very very difficult and the budget ends up being stretched extremely thin the germy aids to seekers a good way of describing it does the w. H. O. Is it trying to do too much it has a ton of its plate and theres you know theres increasing expectations of the w. H. O. Takes on more and more but it also doesnt have the resources to do all of that and as you point out in the introduction a lot of the resources that are coming to w. H. O. These days are coming from donors who are specifying specific purposes we will give you x. Number of dollars to work on this particular issue and so not only do you have an organisation that is expected to do more with a relatively small budget but has it has a decreasing amount of control over that budget because the donors are exercising their theyre there to sit there their discretion over what they want that money to be spent on and so you know at some point there has that there have to be some decisions either we need to give this or in more resources in order to take on this broader mandate or we need to cut back the mandate and then the question becomes how do we decide what is is considered less important or can be taken off the w. H. O. As mandate and wales with those sorts of issues go and this comes into the question about the 194 Member States that you have who is going to make those decisions what sorts of issues are going to to rise to the surface because the priorities for say the United States or for canada or for the United Kingdom are not is really going to be the same as the priorities for say brazil or zimbabwe or thailand and so then youve got some conflicts that come up when you try to shrink the mandate of the w. H. O. Regina tights on monday for the w. H. O. Would that be what you would want to see a more full focus on specific things. Well i think that there is a bit of overlap in terms of Different International organizations that are providing support for Different Things and different diseases but has always had a key role and to keep care of health areas that are completely neglected by others and that up where little attention is being. Put on for example the also our or a couple of other you know neglected topical diseases and i think that as the others have said its going to be really difficult to understand which ones they should prioritize and which ones they shouldnt i think that you know the health needs of the countries are going to be very different and there are lots of countries that really very highly rely on the vehicle for everything that they do get to terms of Technical S