Revision summary
WHO coordinates international health under IHR 2005. It declared a PHEIC in January 2020 and a pandemic in March 2020. Guidance, Solidarity trials, and COVAX were the main operational roles. Criticism: delay, China politics, Taiwan, and funding dependence. It cannot enforce inside States; it remains the only global health conductor.
Model answer
Introduction
Covid-19 was the first pandemic in a generation that shut borders and wards together. The World Health Organization was written to coordinate that kind of shock under the International Health Regulations. Its role in 2020 was central, contested, and still indispensable.
Body
Mandate and early role
- WHO is the UN specialised agency for health; under IHR 2005 it receives outbreak news, issues a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, and advises travel, testing, and clinical care.
- It declared a PHEIC on 30 January 2020 and used the word pandemic on 11 March 2020, after which most States treated Covid as a global, not a Wuhan, event.
- Technical products—case definitions, PPE guidance, Solidarity therapeutics trials, and later vaccine standards—gave poor and rich ministries a common sheet.
Coordination and equity
- WHO convened States, warned against an infodemic, and tried to keep medical supply chains from becoming a pure auction.
- COVAX, with GAVI and CEPI, was the equity arm: pooled procurement so that vaccine nationalism would not leave low-income countries at the end of the queue.
- For India the Organisation was a standard-setter and a diplomatic stage, even while India became a manufacturing hub and ran its own national response.
Criticism that a discussion must include
- Critics said human-to-human spread was acknowledged late, that early praise of China’s lockdown sat uneasily with transparency on origins, and that Taiwan’s exclusion hurt surveillance.
- Funding dependence on assessed and voluntary contributions, including a US withdrawal announcement in 2020, showed that WHO can be punished by great-power politics.
- IHR has weak enforcement: WHO can name, advise, and shame; it cannot order a lockdown in Lucknow or a factory in Hubei.
Balanced discussion
- Role: necessary conductor of science and solidarity in a pandemic that no State laboratory could score alone.
- Limits: late calls, political capture risk, and no troops of its own.
- Reform talk in 2020—an independent panel, stronger IHR, and sustainable finance—follows from that mix, not from abolishing WHO.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD IHR[IHR 2005] --> W[WHO] W --> P[PHEIC pandemic] W --> G[Guidance Solidarity] W --> C[COVAX equity] K[State sovereignty great-power funds] --> L[Limits]
Conclusion
In the Corona period WHO declared the emergency, issued the common protocol, and tried to equalise vaccines through COVAX. It was slow and politically squeezed, yet the alternative was each capital inventing a virus response in the dark. Discussion should therefore reform the Organisation, not empty the conductor’s stand.
Quick related
Students also ask
-
Can WHO force a country to lock down?
No. It issues temporary recommendations under IHR. Police power remains with sovereign States.
-
Why keep WHO after the 2020 criticism?
Because pathogen news, vaccine standards, and poor-country access still need one table. The reform agenda is independence and speed, not a vacuum.
PYQ trend
When UPSC asked this
Related PYQs from other years, newest first. Open a question to read it.
-
2025 · Q6 · UPGS2 · 8 marks
Explain the main issues relating to Human Resource Development in India. -
2025 · Q14 · UPGS2 · 12 marks
Public Interest Litigation (PIL) is an important tool for promoting social justice and protecting the rights of marginalized communities. Analyse with suitable examples. -
2024 · Q9 · UPGS2 · 8 marks
Describe the organisational structure and funding of the World Health Organisation (WHO). -
2023 · Q16 · UPGS2 · 12 marks
Discuss the various aspects relating to the management of Health Services in the State of Uttar Pradesh. -
2020 · Q7 · UPGS2 · 8 marks
Analyse various aspects relating to Management of Human Resources in India. -
2018 · Q3 · UPGS2 · 8 marks
Throw light on the challenges and problems of farmers and the agriculture sector in Uttar Pradesh. Suggest measures for improvement.
More from this paper
Q1 · UPSC Mains 2020 · UPGS2 · 8 marks
Explain the concept of Judicial Activism and evaluate its impact on the relationship of Executive and Judiciary in India.
Executive and Judiciary
Judicial activism is gap-filling rights enforcement through PIL and Articles 32, 226 and 142. Cases such as Maneka Gandhi and Vishaka show courts acting where the Executive lagged. The impact is dual: more accountability and more friction over policy and appointments. NJAC (2015) and scheme-monitoring illustrate the strain on separation of powers. The relationship works when decrees are exceptional and the Executive then legislates.
Q2 · UPSC Mains 2020 · UPGS2 · 8 marks
"The President of India cannot become a dictator." Explain.
Indian Constitution
Article 74 after the Forty-fourth Amendment binds the President to ministerial aid and advice. Shamsher Singh treats the President as a formal head of a parliamentary executive. Ordinance and emergency powers are not personal; they ride on the Council. Five-year tenure, electoral college, and Article 61 impeachment block self-perpetuation. Courts can test whether an act was truly on advice, so dictatorship has no constitutional door.
Q3 · UPSC Mains 2020 · UPGS2 · 8 marks
Critically analyse the role of the Inter-State Council in promoting Co-operative Federalism in India.
Union and the States
Article 263 and the 1990 Presidential Order created the Inter-State Council after Sarkaria. It is a political forum for Centre–State and inter-State coordination, not a court. It can record disputes and recommend; it cannot bind the Union like a statute. Infrequent meetings and a PM-chaired, recommendatory design weaken its role. GST Council and fiscal bodies now often bargain harder than this Council.
Toppers' copies
Toppers' copies for this question will be uploaded soon.