Taiwan has yet to know whether it will be invited to attend this year’s World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva, Switzerland, next month. Whether or not Taiwan is invited, if it wants to connect with the international community and play a role in international health issues, it needs to keep in touch with global health trends and understand the main issues of concern to the WHO.
The theme for this year’s WHA is “Advancing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: Building Better Systems for Health,” and it will explore how to strengthen systems for promoting health in countries at different levels of social and economic development.
In 2015, the UN General Assembly approved a declaration titled “Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,” along with 17 sustainable development goals that set priorities for the world until 2030. The agenda stresses common development in three aspects — environmental, economic and social — and the WHO is leveraging this agenda by calling for health to be seen as a core issue to achieve these goals.
To achieve these sustainable development goals, the report of January’s session of the WHO’s executive board proposes several strategies for reform.
First, it calls for a shift from “health governance” to “governance for health.” This means not just integrating work and resources within healthcare departments, but also making other departments protect and promote health. For example, tackling air pollution involves construction, the environment and health.
Second, the WHO calls for strengthening healthcare systems to achieve universal health coverage as essential for development.
Investment in public health might not be as visible and glamorous as industrial development, but health infrastructure is an important pillar supporting the functioning of a country.
The WHO has also noticed the opportunities brought by innovations in information and communication technology. In the age of big data, analysis, application and management of data is essential to strengthening healthcare systems.
Taiwan has repeatedly been shut out of the international community because of political concerns. Indignant as one might feel about this, promoting Taiwan’s participation in the WHO requires more than just political action. It also calls for laying a firm foundation by making contributions to technological expertise.
The National Health Insurance program that benefits people in Taiwan is founded on well-functioning financial and health systems. However, many problems have cropped up in the course of running the program. Given that Taiwan has already achieved universal health coverage, its experience with health finance and data systems, and the challenges it has faced with these systems, can enrich the discussion about “moving toward governance for health.”
Taiwan’s innovative health cloud service and PharmaCloud system, its experience in interdepartmental cooperation on the tobacco surcharge and tax and its experience in detection and control of counterfeit medicines all correspond to the WHO’s areas of concern. They are issues that can enhance Taiwan’s practical participation and ways in which it can meaningfully contribute.
Taiwan has built up copious health databases and statistical data that can be used in coordination with sustainable development goal indices. It could keep in step with international data by offering a Taiwanese version of the WHO’s World Health Statistics reports. Such measures would strengthen Taiwan’s meaningful participation and resonate with globally relevant issues.
Lin Shih-chia is executive director of the Foundation of Medical Professionals Alliance in Taiwan and a former legislator.
Translated by Julian Clegg
US political scientist Francis Fukuyama, during an interview with the UK’s Times Radio, reacted to US President Donald Trump’s overturning of decades of US foreign policy by saying that “the chance for serious instability is very great.” That is something of an understatement. Fukuyama said that Trump’s apparent moves to expand US territory and that he “seems to be actively siding with” authoritarian states is concerning, not just for Europe, but also for Taiwan. He said that “if I were China I would see this as a golden opportunity” to annex Taiwan, and that every European country needs to think
Why is Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not a “happy camper” these days regarding Taiwan? Taiwanese have not become more “CCP friendly” in response to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) use of spies and graft by the United Front Work Department, intimidation conducted by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the Armed Police/Coast Guard, and endless subversive political warfare measures, including cyber-attacks, economic coercion, and diplomatic isolation. The percentage of Taiwanese that prefer the status quo or prefer moving towards independence continues to rise — 76 percent as of December last year. According to National Chengchi University (NCCU) polling, the Taiwanese
Today is Feb. 28, a day that Taiwan associates with two tragic historical memories. The 228 Incident, which started on Feb. 28, 1947, began from protests sparked by a cigarette seizure that took place the day before in front of the Tianma Tea House in Taipei’s Datong District (大同). It turned into a mass movement that spread across Taiwan. Local gentry asked then-governor general Chen Yi (陳儀) to intervene, but he received contradictory orders. In early March, after Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) dispatched troops to Keelung, a nationwide massacre took place and lasted until May 16, during which many important intellectuals
US President Donald Trump is an extremely stable genius. Within his first month of presidency, he proposed to annex Canada and take military action to control the Panama Canal, renamed the Gulf of Mexico, called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy a dictator and blamed him for the Russian invasion. He has managed to offend many leaders on the planet Earth at warp speed. Demanding that Europe step up its own defense, the Trump administration has threatened to pull US troops from the continent. Accusing Taiwan of stealing the US’ semiconductor business, it intends to impose heavy tariffs on integrated circuit chips
RSS