WHO says competition is healthy: How civil society can change IGOs

In this paper I argue that the politicization of civil society can lead non-state actors to create new international institutions which compete with traditional intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) to provide global public goods; this competition over resources and authority, in turn, can put IGOs under pressure to undertake institutional change. I illustrate this argument by looking at the changing role of the World Health Organization in the field of global health. The case study shows how increased funding to support health initiatives in other UN agencies, the burgeoning of health NGOs, and the emergence of private foundations such as the Gates Foundation, put the WHO under pressure to change in order to avoid becoming irrelevant.