Crisis Response – Multilateral vs. Decentralized
In a column published this week in the New York Times, David Brooks ponders the role of international organizations in dealing with a global crisis, which is what the current swine flu outbreak will become if it turns into a pandemic. Brooks argues that decentralized response capabilities will be more effective than a response coordinated by an international organization (such as WHO in the case of swine flu). He gives the decentralized response three advantages over global coordination: speed, flexibility, and credibility.
This is a debate worth engaging, and a good starting point is another pandemic threat, highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI). When HPAI first appeared in southeast Asia in late 2003, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in coordination with the World Organization for Animal Health provided the first comprehensive response. The affected countries had neither the capability nor the resources to deal with the bird flu outbreak without assistance. FAO and OIE, at the invitation of the countries, stepped in to help develop national strategies for disease control and eradication. Over the past 5 years these two international organizations have led a sustained effort to prevent and control HPAI based on a global strategy that includes surveillance, emergency preparedness, and capacity building to improve veterinary infrastructures.
Evaluations of the FAO/OIE response have shown their efforts to be effective, though not perfect. Would a decentralized response have been speedier, more flexible and more credible? The answer is almost certainly, no. Many countries simply do not have the capability to respond to a crisis such as HPAI without external assistance. Yet, neither do FAO and OIE have either the resources or the authority to take over from national governments the primary responsibility for responding to a disease outbreak. They cannot, for example, send in a team to provide assistance without an invitation from the national government.
The international organizations have not been the only ones responding to HPAI. Many donor countries have provided technical assistance and financial resources to affected and at-risk countries. Sometimes, though, their assistance is more well-intentioned than effective. Shortly after HPAI was first reported in Turkey, FAO was invited to send an evaluation team, whose visit was immediately followed by overlapping evaluation teams from two large donors. Turkish veterinary officials were so overwhelmed with managing visitors that they had little time left to manage the crisis. Greater coordination of these efforts was clearly warranted, but all too often coordination for the international organizations means “give us the money and we will decide what needs to be done.”
The lesson to be learned from the HPAI experience is that we need strong international institutions, especially, but not solely, to assist countries with inadequate resources and capabilities to deal with crisis situations that threaten food security. Technical experts in international organizations can provide neutral, credible advice that government leaders can use to defend difficult decisions, such as destroying a farmer’s livelihood in order to control a disease. International organizations can and should do much more to coordinate the international response in a crisis. They operate early warning and reporting networks. They provide a forum for global planning and strategy development. These are all crucial roles international organizations can play to support, not diminish, the primary responsibility of national governments to respond to a crisis. When the stake is a global pandemic, multilateralism serves our self-interests.
