Lerne mit deinen Freunden und bleibe auf dem richtigen Kurs mit deinen persönlichen Lernstatistiken
Jetzt kostenlos anmeldenNie wieder prokastinieren mit unseren Lernerinnerungen.
Jetzt kostenlos anmeldenWho is WHO? Or better, what is the WHO?
Well, WHO is an acronym for World Health Organisation. And what is the World Health Organisation? It is one of the agencies of the United Nations (UN), the most important Intergovernmental Organisation.
In this explanation, we will introduce intergovernmental organisations' is structure, functions, examples, and finally, its advantages.
Intergovernmental Organisations (IGOs) are crucial actors in global governance. Before delving into the definition of IGOs, let’s try and understand what global governance means.
Global governance is a coordinated effort by a worldwide actor, such as a group of governments, an intergovernmental organisation, or a nongovernmental organisation (NGOs) to tackle an issue that affects different parts of the world.
One example of a global governance issue is climate change. States, NGOs and IGOs collaborate to find ways to coordinate an answer to the challenges of climate change. International Climate Change Agreements often set shared responsibilities and goals to mitigate the effects of climate change.
Check out our explanation on NGOs and International Climate Change Agreements to learn more about these topics!
So what is an Intergovernmental Organisation?
An Intergovernmental Organisation is an organisation created by states to coordinate joint action. It usually entails a series of multilateral agreements or treaties that function as a constitution for the states to agree to and that they can use to hold each other accountable. Agreements also decide the IGO's operators, structure, function, and agencies.
IGOs have grown exponentially in the past century, especially after World War Two. As we will see in the following sections, IGOs can have very different functions and structures according to their aims.
An IGO comes with privileges, conditions of immunity, rights to respect, aims and international legal status. This permits the process through which different IGOs can decide to collaborate or coordinate collaboration and agreements between their members.
The most common features of an Intergovernmental Organisation are:
Explaining an IGO's function is not as simple as you might think. For now, we know that IGOs serve global governance; however, their function varies enormously according to their role.Nonetheless, we can try and group the most important types of IGOs with the following overview.
Worldwide or Global Organisation: with this term, we usually refer to Intergovernmental Organisations, which are more or less open to all nations if the conditions for membership are met. The most famous example would be the UN, which has the function of coordinating global governance on a worldwide scale. At the same time, the UN holds different agencies which have more specific functions.
Cultural, linguistic, ethnic, religious, or historical organisations: these organisations bring together states based on a shared identity, expressed, for example, in language or culture. In relation to the UK, we could see the Commonwealth of Nations as a linguistic and cultural organisation.
Economic Organisations: these organisations are erected to achieve shared economic goals between countries, such as freer trade and economic development. Examples include the World Trade Organisation, which aims at consolidating free trade.
Regional Organisations: these organisations unite members from a region of the world to coordinate efforts on different issues. They can be economic, such as the Economic Community of West African States, regional and historical such as the Council of Europe, or even military, such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).
As we have said above, the function of IGOs varies significantly according to their aims and values. Here is a list and a brief explanation of the four of the most essential IGOs:
The United Nations (UN), founded on the 24th of October, 1945, is the sole IGO where all states in the world can potentially be members. The members are currently 193. It is almost impossible for a state not to be part of the UN because for a country to be called such, the UN has to recognise it.
Of course, there are exceptions that regard territories that consider themselves autonomous, such as Palestine, which is an observer member, or Taiwan, which is recognised by only 13 members of the UN.
The topics the UN addresses are many and different, such as poverty, security, food, health, human rights, and climate. All of the various issues give existence to different agencies, i.e. sub-organs of the UN, which represent all of the world’s aims concerning the object they tackle.
Examples of agencies under the UN are the World Health Organisation, the World Trade Organisation, and the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The WHO is an agency of the UN that aims at coordinating cooperation and governance on public health. It wants to provide people of the world the highest level of health possible, protecting them from endemics, pandemics, and diseases and working on health care structures and infrastructures.
Examples of pandemics that the WHO has tackled are AIDS, the Ebola virus in West Africa, tuberculosis, and COVID19.
Some critiques of the WHO have accused it of medical racism and outsourcing in its coordination of access to COVID vaccination. Indeed, during the COVID-19 pandemic, resources were not evenly distributed by the WHO around the world, and countries in the Global South were the last to receive doses of vaccines. Critiques of the WHO also recall how the WHO, being a UN agency, should be committed to the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and how its management of vaccines was based on discrimination of countries on the basis of economies and development1.
Intergovernmental Organisations are crucial tools for global governance, as we have seen until now. In particular, the main advantages are:
States are members of Intergovernmental Organisations. Depending on the aims of the organisation, states come together globally, regionally, or according to some shared identity, such as language, or interest, such as a sector of the economy.
The UN is the most important Intergovernmental Organisation since it entails 193 member states. The UN has various subsidiary agencies that tackle specific issues such as development and growth, climate change, health, etc.
There are more than three hundred Intergovernmental Organisations around the world. The number of Intergovernmental Organisations has grown exponentially after WW2.
The role of IGOs varies according to what their aims are. Generally, IGOs are crucial institutions to coordinate joint efforts in solving a global or regional issue. Therefore, they are a tool of global governance.
States join IGOs because they are spaces where collective decision-making happens. This signifies that, arguably, all states, even the smallest, have a say in the outcomes of global governance and in the resolution of an issue that impacts them.
Which of the following definitions fits the concept of Global Governance?
Global governance is a coordinated effort by a worldwide actor, such as a group of governments, an intergovernmental organisation, or a nongovernmental organisation to tackle an issue that affects different parts of the world.
Which of the following is an example of an IGOs-led action?
The COP Summits, such as the COP26 Summit, which tackle Climate Change.
Why is a plenary assembly crucial for all IGOs?
To ensure that the interests of all members are represented.
Which of the following is an example of a dispute-resolution body in relation to IGOs?
The European Court of Human Rights.
Which is the subsidiary agency of the UN responsible for discussing Climate Change related issues?
IPCC
Which of the following best applies to the Commonwealth of Nation?
Cultural and linguistic IGO.
Already have an account? Log in
Open in AppThe first learning app that truly has everything you need to ace your exams in one place
Sign up to highlight and take notes. It’s 100% free.
Save explanations to your personalised space and access them anytime, anywhere!
Sign up with Email Sign up with AppleBy signing up, you agree to the Terms and Conditions and the Privacy Policy of StudySmarter.
Already have an account? Log in
Already have an account? Log in
The first learning app that truly has everything you need to ace your exams in one place
Already have an account? Log in