Dear HIFA colleagues,
The BMJ has published a short interview with Ilona Kickbusch, founder and chair of the Global Health Centre at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. Below is an extract and a comment from me. Full text here: https://www.bmj.com/content/389/bmj.r764
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How do you perceive the evolving role of the World Health Organization (WHO) in the current global health landscape?
'WHO will need to analyse what its core functions are and how those core functions should be financed.'
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COMMENT (NPW): What are the core functions of WHO in relation to healthcare information?
WHO is currently active in all six areas of the global evidence ecosystem, to generate, publish, synthesise, package, find and apply evidence.
In its General Programme of Work, WHO says that its 'quintessential function [is] to ensure access to authoritative and strategic information on matters that affect peoples’ health' (GPW13, p37).
I would like to invite your thoughts on what are the core functions of WHO in relation to healthcare information. If we had to prioritise them (whether for financial or other reasons), how would we do so?
To start, I would like to propose that WHO has a central role in synthesis, in the development of policy and clinical guidelines which can in turn inform member states to apply evidence-informed policy and practice.
Are there any aspects of WHO's work that could possibly be done by others? To be provocative, it could be argued that some of WHO's 'packaging' work could be done by others. I remember working for WHO on a short-term contract in Geneva, to edit a book called Symptom Relief in Terminal Illness. The work could probably have been done just as well, and more cheaply, by a commercial book publisher.
A third question: Is there anything that WHO is not currently doing they should be doing? Our HIFA global consultation (2023/4) concludes that WHO could be doing much more as an advocate and enabler of universal access to reliable healthcare information, and should convene stakeholders to develop a global strategy for its realisation. This could be done at modest expense, yet it would be a game-changer for global health. In 2025 we are urging WHO to explicitly champion universal access to reliable healthcare information: a world where every person has access to the reliable healthcare information they need to protect their own health and the health of others.
WHO is uniquely placed to serve as a convenor to address global health challenges, and this function should be strengthened.
Best wishes, Neil
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org