The World Health Organization (WHO) is an agency of the United Nations (UN)
responsible for improving global healthcare by directing and responding to world health
emergencies. WHO is the UN number one agency that joins nations, other partners and people to
advance in health, protect the world and serve the underserved. This organization has proven
itself to provide succour to many countries in the face of deadly diseases outbreak by enabling
and coordinating fast response to different health challenges threatening the world. The roles of
the WHO health emergencies are to prepare emergencies by identifying, mitigating and
managing risks; prevent emergencies and support development of tools necessary during
outbreaks; detect and respond to acute health emergencies and support delivery of essential
health services in fragile places. Despite the roles of the WHO in providing succour to health
emergencies worldwide, the WHO response to Covid-19 did not meet the world’s expectation in
the early stage of its outbreak as a result of the widespread of the pandemic and the danger it
poses on human and capital development.
According to the BBC News, a report panel was set up in 2021 to access the response of
the WHO in respect to Covid-19. It was declared that ‘there was serious failures in WHO and
global response to the pandemic.’ It was observed that ‘the WHO should have declared a global
emergency earlier than it did; that without urgent change, the world was susceptible to another
major disease outbreak.’ The co-chair of the report panel, Ellen Jonson Sirleaf observes that ‘the
surge of Covid-19 could have been prevented if there were no myriads of failures, gaps, and
delays in preparedness and response to the pandemic.’
Another factor which contributed to the spread of this virus was the relationship between the
WHO, the national governments and other actors fighting the epidemic in 2020. This is as a
result of the breakdown in communication channel among all major stakeholders battling the
disease. This was primarily caused by the WHO whom all other countries and civil societies
depend failed to share basic information regarding preventive measures to stop the spread of the
virus. All citizens of various countries in the world only depend on the WHO and the national
government for information and guidance on how to manage the crisis. This further exacerbated
the spread because the national government is seen as the only information-sharing superior and
which is not so close to the grass root level as the civil societies and the non-governmental
organizations (NGO) and other bodies or actors fighting the surge of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Although, few countries, according to Klover, (2021) were reported to have positive relationship
between the government and other actors fighting the epidemic, For example, in Austria, ‘there
was a formal recognition of the non-profit sector because of the legal loopholes spotlighted
following the pandemic. Also, the United Kingdom sees the civil society as a serious partner in
the life after the pandemic.’ During the lockdown, many civil societies, like the NGOs, in their
quest to support people at the grassroot level came up with different support system such as
fundraising, information technology, volunteering and local neighbourhood supports (Klover,
2021).
It, therefore, means that the lives of about 5.1 million people (WHO, 2021) could have
been saved worldwide if not for the ineffectiveness of the WHO in tackling emergency
situations. Also, estimated 97 million people would have been prevented from extreme poverty
in 2020 and millions of enterprises would not have faced an existential threat, plus nearly half of
the world’s 3.3 billion global workforces not being at risks of losing their livelihood’ (Jonhson
and Gamarra, 2021).
In the words of Ikenberry (2020), who asserts that ‘the coronavirus is the poster child of the
many transnational dangers: it does not respect borders and one cannot hide from it or defeat it in
war. Countries facing a global outbreak are only as safe as the least safe among them. For better
or worse, the United States and the rest of the world are in it together.’ Therefore, the following
recommendation is given:
1) There should be an acknowledgement of liberal internationalism. The ‘liberal world
order is collapsing because its leading patrons, starting with the United States, have given
up on it (Ikenberry, 2020). Liberal internationalism is a political ideology which is
premised on the belief that international progress is possible. This means that if all the
countries of the world are on the page in terms of social and national security, and there is
no tussle for power as seen in the struggle of China with other countries in terms of using
science and technology to reduce the population of the world, there is tendency for
mutual growth and development.
2) The WHO should provide a framework for international collaboration
3) The United States should redefine the concept of social and national security
4) There should be rapid reporting of clusters of cases of unkmown
