Challenges in achieving the sustainable development goal on good health and well-being: Global governance as an issue for the means of implementation

To formulate health development policy and strategies aimed at the Sustainable Development Goal 3, which seeks to ensuring health and well-being for all, it is indispensable to revisit the issue of global health governance in the wake of the Ebola virus disease outbreak in West Africa. The issue of global health governance is also relevant in the Asia-Pacific region, where Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), influenza A (H1N1) and the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) were health security threats. The failure to respond timely and effectively to the health crisis was derived from a few factors that are relevant to the means of implementation necessary to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. During ordinary times, efforts to enhance health systems should include building the core capacities of the International Health Regulations (IHR), which should be supported not only by the World Health Organization (WHO), but also through coordination among diverse multilateral and bilateral organizations as part of their health development cooperation programmes associated with achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. To enhance preparedness for handling health crises, the organizational capacities of WHO and its regional offices need to be strengthened. In addition, coordination among WHO and other actors should be facilitated in accordance with the situational categories based on the combination of (a) the capacity of the country where an outbreak of an infectious disease is occurring and (b) the severity and magnitude of that infectious disease.