Should we have a Global One Health Governance Body or not?

by Jul 4, 2015My Write Ups, One Health

global government

To start as off lets first adopt a definition for One Health as a movement dedicated to building new levels of trust and transparency between disciplines, nations, organizations, and people. Moreover, that One Health is a rational way of thinking that mirrors the reality of people‘s lives and livelihoods. Lets come back to our question, is leadership essential to One Health‘? Should we have a Global One Health Governance Body? Let‘s proceed and try to answer this question in the next few paragraphs.

We have established that One Health is integrally about collective action that entails crossing borders to achieve a common goal. When crossing borders one cannot rely on traditional forms of authority and therefore the capacity to create collective action (especially without formal authority) becomes even more perilous. Loosely speaking, does it mean that to provide “border control” we need a One Health governing body? To actually try and provide an answer to this question let‘s consider the arguments proposed by different scholars in the next two paragraphs.

Boustfield and Brown (2011) suggests that one way to comprehend One Health (and by extension shading light on how it should be governed) is to meditate what it isn‘t. Firstly, it is not an institution, and as stated by Okello et al., (2015) the many institutions have well-defined (and many a times) different mandates and may lack trust amongst themselves. Secondly, it has no set of reference laws rather it is an agreement between the “players” this characteristic of being fluid as noted by Chien (2012) is attractive and readily appropriated by international agencies and networks since it has no specified binding laws, what has been described as “soft governance” by Leboeuf., (2011). Thirdly, it is not owned by anyone, it is a global public good as noted by Normandeau., (2011). Normandeau (2011) acknowledges that One Health should remain flexible, resilient, comprehensive, based on a strong foundation and that One Health should not be institutionalized! If we stop here I believe we have an answer already, but let‘s consider the counter arguments in the next paragraph by other scholars.

Gilbert et al., 2014 outlines that governance and coordination are imperative for One Health; this will enable it to face the societal challenges and avoid the rat trap in which global health governance finds itself at the moment. Galaz et al., (2015) supports Gilbert et al., (2014) when they say, “It is clear that in the current times there is tension between making One Health an informal, networked ‘movement’ and a more formalized organizational change.” Normandeau (2011) recognizes that the absence of coordination can weaken the One Health movement and finally Lee. K and Brumme Z. (2013) also affirms that One Health is in the struggle to achieving institutional independence.

It is clear that there are pros and cons in having &not having a One Health governance body. In my opinion having no governing body has far reaching advantages since it will render One Health to reach and include a wider array of players. It will be more acceptable since it camouflages with the participating organizational structures. It will invite a wider audience of scientists through its collaborative model and doesn‘t risk having the problems facing global health governance since it will have a wider network of both traditional and non-traditional health actors but at the same time not having a governing body reduces the ability of One Health to push for a “favourable agenda” when it comes to disease prioritization, attract sufficient funding and accrue policy support especially when dealing with endemic neglected tropic diseases (Mableson., 2014). At the same time we know that it is in these resource deficient settings that the economic case/proof of concept for One Health is continually gaining momentum and producing tangible results (Zinsstag et al., 2005; Zinsstag et al., 2007).

Therefore what is the take home message, to have or not to have a governing body for One Health? Okello et al., (2015) suggests a sound solution, which is to establish a model of governance that is acceptable to all One Health stakeholders. That seems impossible, right? Since we already said that these stakeholders (institutions) have different mandates! In this dilemma of establishing a model of governance that is acceptable to all, how then do we ensure OH needs of leadership are met while maintaining the flexibility of the One Health movement that has made it so appealing? This means we need n alternative for a Global One Health Governance body…..stay tuned for my next post that will propose an alternative.

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