Logistics and Operations Management in World Health Organization - Case Study Example

Logistics and operations management Introduction WHO is the short form World Health Organization, which is a universal organization established in 1948 as an outfit of the United Nations with a mandate of improving the health wellbeing of the people throughout the world. In addition, the agency was established to prevent and contain communicable diseases throughout the world by adopting a wide range of programs and technological projects. Therefore, the World Health Organization was established as an authority for coordinating and managing health in the confines of the United Nations organization. The organization that is World Health Organization is mandated to offer leadership on worldwide health affairs, outline the health research program and put in place rules and standards for health matters. Moreover, the organization is tasked to give technological and scientific support to developing countries and keep an eye on health trends in these countries. Having identified how vital and strategic is the World Health Organization, it is of importance to know and understand the component activities of World Health Organization. Component activities of the World Health Organization In looking at the component activities of the World Health Organization, it is of importance first to acknowledge the fact that the setting at which the World Health Organization works in is continually becoming more complex due to the rapid changes witnessed in the health sector. As such even the precincts of public health action have got hard to draw, and as a result they have stretched into other segments that have a bearing and an influence into the outcomes and opportunities in the health sector. To adequately react to these developments, the WHO has come up with a number of component activities that address the health objectives, as well as operational approaches. These component activities present a gauge that can be used to measure the general performance of World Health Organization, as well as the influence of its work and organizational objectives (Beigbeder, Nashini, Orsini & Tiercy, 1998). A. support of development The past decade has witnessed resources being pumped and a lot of investments being put in the health sector. As such, the health sector has achieved unexpected and exceptional unprecedented standing as a fundamental authority of socioeconomic development. In spite of this, runaway poverty in developing countries continues to cripple the health standards through poor health affecting a big number of the populations in these countries. In pursuing the development of health, the organization is guided by the principle of equity as an ethical principle. The principle states that there should be nothing to prevent or deny for any unjustified reason anyone from accessing life-saving health interventions. The obligation of the organization to this principle guarantees that the activities of the World Health Organization extend precedent and priority to the poor and underprivileged groups and countries in health outcomes. This component activity of the WHO is a pillar of the organization in meeting its Millennium development goals in matters of health as well as treating and containing communicable diseases as a key foundation of the World Health Organization’s development goal in health (World Health Organization, 2003). B. nurturing health sector and security The increasing outbreaks of new and epidemic diseases such as Ebola have been among biggest threats to the global health structure and security. Various factors such as increased urbanization, degradation of the environment as well as abuse of medicinal substances such as antibiotics and with the issue of manufactured and tinned foods, the occurrence of such outbreaks have been on a steady increase. The component activity of promoting health security by the World Health Organization gives the organization an opportunity and avenue to promote world health by growing and developing the ability of the countries of the world to defend them individually and collectively against outbreaks (World Health Organization, 2003). C. developing and growing health systems The world health organization cannot be able to meet its millennia goals on health if it does nothing to improve the accessibility of good health facilities in poverty stricken countries and zones. The equity principle on health holds that it is a mandatory requirement for the very poor and disadvantaged populations to access health services too. However, this does not happen in the real world with many health organizations of the world failing to honor the equity principle of health. As a result, the WHO has a duty to strengthen the health organizations of the world to be in a position of the provision of health services to all. Certain areas have been identified by the organization as requiring strengthening. These include adequate financing, increasing the numbers of professionally trained staff, as well as the exploitation and use of the required technical support such as the provision of the appropriate drugs. Among the issues tackled comprise the offering of sufficient numbers of properly educated staff, satisfactory financing, proper systems for gathering crucial statistics, and access to suitable technology as well as essential drugs (World Health Organization, 2003). D. integrating research with information and data The organization’s component activity of connecting research with information and evidence offers the ideal foundation to put up objectives, come up strategies, and ultimately evaluate the achieved results. As a result, the health information and opinion that the World Health Organization make is authoritative information. To maintain these high standards, the organization maintains constant discussions with established experts to set norms and standards and keep a close watch to the events of the changing global heath situation (World Health Organization,2003). E. supporting partnerships The World Health Organization understands that it cannot carry out its mandate of ensuring good health in the world all by itself. Therefore, the organization endeavors to conduct its work in partnership and support of its goodwill partners such as the various United Nations agencies, donor groups, the private sector, global corporations, and the civil society. WHO employs these component activity strategies to encourage partners come up with programs aimed at lining up their activities within countries with proven technical practices, and with the guidelines put within the countries (Burci& Vignes, 2004). F. encouraging improvement in performance The World Health Organization is continuously involved in constant reforms, which have a goal and a plan of improving the efficacy, quality, and competence of the organization at the organizational level, international level, and in the confines of particular countries. One effective way of making this component activity of performance improvement work is through the organization maintaining a work task of staff that is highly motivated and handsomely rewarded for their work. The World Health Organization understands that its working staff is the single most influential asset that carries its goals and objectives to ensure they are met. In addition, in drawing its budget, the World Health Organization does so through a priority order plan whereby the money is allocated through results-based management that aim at improving performance at organizational, international and country levels (Burci& Vignes, 2004). Evaluation of the performance objectives of World Health Organization To evaluate the performance of the World Health Organization, the essay takes an approach of evaluating factors that affect and impact on the component activities of the World Health Organization that have been discussed previously in the essay. The world lacks independence and influence of its own. Various factors contribute to this state of affairs. First among these factors is the knowledge that availability of resources such as money is what gives an organization a much-needed form of independence and influence. However, the world health organization does not have an adequate level of resources to command independence and influence. In fact, the organization It has a ridiculously measure regular budget which is roughly about US$ 800 000million for two full years. This makes the organization dependent heavily on donations some of which may be given with the ulterior motive of controlling the affairs of the organization in return. Unfortunately, the over-reliant on donation has impacted negatively on the budget of the organization which has been experiencing a steady decline over the last past decade. It is also to note that even though the organization plays an observer role in various organizations it lacks an influential voice as well as a veto leading to it being overlooked when these other agencies implement some health programs (Siddiqi, 1995). The normative and the operational The original idea that motivated the formation of the WHO was to come up with an organization that would coordinate the efforts between states with a view of surveillance if diseases by trade embargos and military venture. However, the drafters of the constitution of this earlier WHO organization drafted a constitution that gave the World Health Organization a vast mandate of operation under a very broad definition of health. Even though on the face of it this may appear a good endeavor since it gives the organization a great room for flexibility, the biggest challenge is it has risen to unrealistic expectations from the public and member countries on the WHO. With it comes the discussion as to the distinction between the standard roles of the organization from its operational roles since at the time of its formation, of the developing states were colonies with no set health system in these states. However, with decolonization and rapid technological development in the medical field, there is the view that some diseases should be eradicated already because since after the successful obliteration of smallpox, little has been done to other diseases (Siddiqi, 1995). The technical and the political One of the unfortunate challenges is the departure of the organization in implementing decision making from a clearly defined technical perceptive to a more to political approach. The organization’s decision-making has largely moved from the purely technical to the political. For instance the election of the Director-General which previously was largely a technical affair based on the idea of the independence of the medical profession, the position changed radically in the mid 20th century to make election a largely politicized affair. Further, this interconnection of its technical affair with politics can be witnessed in the functions of the Executive Board members who initially served strictly in their personal capacities as health consultants to a function of being formal representation of various states to the organization through an amendment in the Constitution of the WHO (Siddiqi, 1995). The action of the World Health Organization to be intertwined with political bodies in decision-making shifted the mandate of the WHO to be involved with other sectors and functions apart from that of health. This has occasioned a serious conflict of interest between these other functions and the core function of health to the organization. In addition, the subsequent loss of power and influence by the organization led it to adopting a political approach aimed at regaining influence in its field of operation (Siddiqi, 1995). Ways in which the performance objectives could be improved Various actions need to be taken aimed at enhancing the operational and component activities of the WHO. These recommendations touch on its operative and functional aspects with a view of encouraging continual improvement and achievements in the organization’s component activities and objectives. To start with, the organization can consider a change of its tactic of operation from that of a centralized command structure to a more devolved system of organization in its operations. The organization should set up functioning framework in the country level of promoting and aiding the emphasize of health as a vital global factor. The significance of doing this is casting the World Health Organization as a world leader in world health hence enabling it regains some of its lost independence and influence (Kapteyn, 1982). In addition, the organization should amend its constitution to redefine and trim its operative functions and standard functions. The vast mandate given to the organization by the constitution even though it might appear to give the organization much-needed flexibility in its organization, the good is lost through raised expectation levels towards the organization that is unrealistic and outright unachievable. The high expectations lower the credibility of the organization when it fails to meet up these expectations which negatively affect the image of the World Health Organization (Kapteyn, 1982). Another important recommendation is for the organization to establish avenues of financing its budget that do not impact on its independence in its area of operation. Perhaps one of the major causes of loss of influence and independence of the World Health Organization is the overreliance on aid and donations from external forces to finance the organization’s budget. The problem is that the organization will be forced to work within the limits of its donors so as to please them as a security measure of keeping the aid and donations flowing. No organization can fulfill its component activities from such funding and, therefore, there is an urgent need for the organization to adopt independent sources of funds to finance its component activities and mandate (Kapteyn, 1982). Moreover, the organization should come up with policies that balance its technical functions with the unavoidable political influences to ensure that its more importance technical functions are not lost in the murky waters of politics. The knowledge that major organizations are influenced by some measure of politics helps to stop living in the illusion of being one hundred percent neutral on political influences. No organization in the world can attain that degree of neutrality including the United Nations itself. This being the case, the WHO should aim at balancing the interests of its technical functions with the politics of the day with an aim of striking some balance to prevent over politicization of its technical functions which is dangerous to its component activities. References Beigbeder, Y., Nashat, M., Orsini, M.-A., & Tiercy, J.-F. (1998). The World Health Organization. The Hague [u.a.: Nijhoff. alth Organization. World Health Organization. (2003). The world health report 2003: Shaping the future. Geneva: World Health Organization. Kapteyn, P. J. G. (1982). Organizations related to the United Nations. The Hague [u.a.: Nijhoff. Burci, G. L., & Vignes, C.-H. (2004). World Health Organization. The Hague: Kluwer Law International. Siddiqi, J. (1995). World health and world politics: The World Health Organization and the UN system. Columbus: Univ. of South Carolina Press. Read More