The World Health Organization (WHO): A Public Value Perspective

This chapter offers a PV-oriented treatment of the challenges, value propositions, and value creating potential of the World Health Organization (WHO) in a Covid-19 context. Following earlier PV treatments of multilateral organizations (Chohan, 2019, 2020), this chapter examines the WHO's limitations as a public managerial agent, and it introduces newer theoretical considerations including competition with other multilaterals and multilateral relationships with private power. It then situates the value creating possibilities of the WHO within the PV strategic triangle to explain the constraints that the organization faces. The findings of the chapter suggest that, despite its significant potential for PV creation, and the unique positioning of the organization to lead a global pandemic effort, various constraints have subdued its public value potential, which must be surmounted to lead a truly global effort against future pandemics.