What does the Commonwealth do on Health, and what should it be doing?
Posted by ZoeWare - 19/07/09 at 03:07 pmWatch a video about the Commonwealth’s work on Health and Development and tell us what you think . . .
Find out more about the Commonwealth Secretariat’s work on health and development.
Do you think the Commonwealth could be doing more to assist its members achieve the Millennium Development Goals to Reduce Child Mortality and Improve Maternal Health? Given its limited resources, what do you think the association should be focusing on?
Category : Health
Tags: development, Health, MDGs
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July 31st, 2009 at 11:40 am
I think that as much good as they might be doing… nobody knows anything about it.
You can point to the UN and its action, or the work the Red Cross does.
The Commonwealth doesn’t even come into consideration.
From top to bottom the organisation is a public relations car-crash.
July 31st, 2009 at 12:42 pm
Seconded.
The Commonwealth does not publicise its work. Maybe they do try, but I can’t see any evidence. Probably, in an attempt to allay fears of colonial intererence, the Commonwealth chooses not to wave flags or put up pictures of the Queen.
Yet that is what is missing. The Commonwealth logo is unknown, throughout Westernesse and anywhere outside developing member states. The fact is, invisible benefactors give people a warm feeling, but are never appreciated in the long run.
Let’s see some flags, Commonwealth! Let the world know how good you are!
The Commonwealth at present is a closed book. Noone knows what goes on in the Secretariat. This debate is the first time ever that the Commonwealth has ever asked anything of ME.
The Secretariat is bashful because it is scared of Imperial shadows. It needs to bite the bullet and face the truth: that its shared values are British in origin, but only inasmuch as the steam engine was originally designed in Ancient Greece – The Commonwealth accepts these principles of good governence on their own merits, not because they are forced to by a distant Empire.
So, When the Yellow + Blue of the Commonwealth flies above medical stations and blazes on the side of Land Rovers in three years’ time, i isn’t saying ‘Do as we say’, it’s saying ‘We can help’.
And the Commonwealth expects nothing in return. That’s more than you can say for most.
October 11th, 2009 at 11:33 pm
i did not know the commonwealth worked on health. it seems to me very strange that it does all this work not within its remit.
why not just stick to democracy and let people with more specialism and more money work on other issues.
does the commonwealth even know why it exists? whats its reason for being?
October 24th, 2009 at 9:05 am
The commonwealth is spending a lot of money in training people in various arenas of public Health ;However the same can not be equated to the WHO or UN, because these bodies are directly involved in the delivery of health and obviously there activities are more visible than Commonwealth’s.Commonwealth fundamentally is a body with a different kind of origin as compared to WHO or RED cross & therfore has its own limitations.The commonwealth should ensure that people trained by them should deliver .