A Comparison of Global Governance Across Sectors: Global Health, Trade and Multilateral Development Finance
Published By: Asian Development Bank | Published Date: February , 2018To what extent do the World Health Organization, the World Trade Organization, and
the World Bank remain central today and how much influence do they still wield in shaping
the global agenda? While several studies have traced the development of various
intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), charting their growth and influence in international
affairs, and assessing their prospects, few if any have compared IGOs across various fields.
This paper aims to fill this gap by taking a closer look at three different policy fields to better
understand the current architecture of global governance, the centrality of IGOs, the role of
new and other actors, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of this “new” architecture.
The authors find that, first, the emergence of new private players has significantly eroded
the centrality of IGOs such that the course of global governance in health, trade, and
development finance has changed irreversibly. Second, regional arrangements have
overtaken global ones and nonstate actors have assumed more prominent roles. Third, this
multiplicity of powerful players has led to some positive outcomes but also greater
inefficiencies and redundancies. Fourth, developed countries have been pivotal in eroding
the centrality of IGOs, but developing countries are taking on a greater role in global
governance. Fifth, the new architecture can be described as one of diversification in global
health governance, fragmentation in global trade, and variation in multilateral development
finance.
Author(s): Matthias Helble, Jera Lego, Zulfiqar Ali | Posted on: Mar 30, 2018 | Views() | Download (114)