If we view Taiwan's bid to re-enter the WHO as a war, the nation's officials and NGO representatives who gathered in Geneva, Switzer-land during the World Health Assembly meeting can be likened to the brave warriors of the marine corps, fighting enemies hand-to-hand on the front lines. Tai-wan's sixth attempt to join the WHO failed, but its maneuvers have become much more flexible. Victory depends on not only valiant and skillful soldiers, but also well-planned information and support systems.
Since it withdrew from the UN, Taiwan has faced a wide gap in cultivating international health professionals. This is why Taiwan has lacked both money and talent in its battle to return to the WHO.
Several things have contributed to Taiwan's absence. The Taiwan-ese elite who served as WHO consultants in the past either did not teach courses at schools, or if they taught, students lacked interest in the topic. None of the university public health departments has offered international health-related courses in the last two decades, so naturally their graduates tended not to take such courses when they studied abroad. Nor were they interested in making friends with students from developing countries, many of whom have now become their countries' health ministers and can influence Taiwan's WHO bid in the assembly hall.
Few students from Taiwan who studied abroad chose international health for their masters or doctoral dissertations. Even fewer graduates worked at
international health research institutes or places such as the World Bank, Rocke-feller Foundation and Medecins Sans Frontieres. Therefore, they haven't found channels to participate in the above-mentioned projects. In reality, every WHO assembly is an alumni reunion for institutes such as the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Harvard University and Tulane University.
In 1997, the Institute of Health Policy and Management at Na-tional Taiwan University (NTU)invited an American professor to teach a one-year course on international health. This was when I started to learn about the topic. Now I teach international health at the Institute of Public Health.
Once I began attending international health conferences, I frequently asked other attendees why they didn't help Taiwan return to the WHO. Some replied by asking: Why wasn't wealthy Taiwan loaning a helping hand to resolving the miserable health problems in developing countries? I told them Taiwan could not join in these international projects without WHO membership. These scholars said these large-scale transnational health projects are promoted by NGOs and renowned European and US universities and are therefore not under political pressure like the bureaucrats at the WHO headquarters. If Taiwan has the intention or the capability of taking part in these cooperative projects, it could have done it long ago, said the scholars.
No wonder the EU countries explicitly opposed Taiwan's WHO bid this year. They might have the impression that Taiwan's efforts to enter the world body are politically motivated and that it does not really want to contribute its professionalism to international health.
If Taiwan really wishes to win this war, it should cultivate talent and systematically collect information on international health now -- in other words, build solid information and support systems. In this way, Taiwan will be able to accomplish its missions after its accession into the WHO.
Short-term strategic planning is needed. Establish international health-related think tanks, systematically collect relevant information and translate important documents in the field, such as WHO annual reports, the World Bank annual report and project reports of various NGOs. Keep track of health conditions in other nations lest government officials and NGO representatives misjudge the situation when they lobby at WHO meetings.
Renowned international health scholars or senior NGO counselors should be invited to teach courses in Taiwan -- such as one or two-week workshops, aimed at equipping Taiwanese students, scholars, health-related NGO personnel and government health officials with fundamental knowledge of international health.
The government must engage in medium-term strategic planning. International health-related projects must be systematically subsidized on the condition of having Taiwanese personnel -- be it scholars or government professionals -- in the projects. The National Science Council and the Department of Health should encourage international health-related topics in research projects and advanced studies grants they sponsor. The Ministry of Education should also encourage university public health departments to offer courses on international health (currently only NTU, Taipei Medical University and National Cheng Kung University offer such courses).
Long-term strategic planning is a must. The subject of international health should be added to the examinations for government-sponsored studies abroad and scholarship recipients should be assigned to enroll at universities famous for their international health courses. These students should then work in related institutions after graduation. Some-day, outstanding Taiwanese experts may be seen in many less-developed nations, helping resolve their health problems. Their efforts will be recognized by the governments and international health-related institutions. Then the day when the WHO opens its door for Taiwan will come.
Lu Tsung-hsueh is an associate professor of public health at Chung Shan Medical University.
Translated by Jackie Lin
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