World Health Organisation in Emergencies and Humanitarian Action

An effective business model depends upon a clear
strategy and well defined objectives that are understood
and agreed across the institution. It, too, has to reflect a
clear sense of the institutional assets that are and should
be available to achieve such strategic objectives, and at
the same time a general appreciation of how such assets
should be best employed – at what levels and by whom.
This framework document is intended to explore these
issues to determine what will be precisely needed to
move towards a business model for WHO that serves the
organisation’s purposes now and for a longer-term
future.
 

Since 2005 the World Health Organisation has made
steady progress in identifying its comparative advantages
and value-added for dealing with health action in crises.
In so doing, WHO has established clear objectives for its
own work and for its role as health cluster lead, globally
and in-country. Its performance indicators are ambitious
but precise, and its holistic approach for garnering the
competencies of the organisation as a whole to focus on
health action in crisis conceptually plausible.
Nevertheless, despite this progress, WHO has to test the
extent to which it is ready for a sustainable business
model against criteria that not only have relevance for
the immediate but also for the longer term.