Continuous Evaluation of Health Capability
Establishing key outcomes and indicators to continually evaluate whether actions and policies contribute to achieving health capabilities for all
WHAT IS IT?
This principle articulates the need for continuous evaluation that holds actors accountable for their respective duties and obligations. Continuous evaluation ensures that the Constitution, responsibilities, and roles are real standards that uphold domestic and global health, not just unfulfilled promises. Current global and domestic health governance efforts lack the normative framework to set the standards for these evaluative structures. SHG offers a comprehensive and clear framework of values, standards, roles, and responsibilities that allow comprehensive, systematic, rigorous evaluation of actors and actions.
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
Continuous evaluation is crucial to ensure that health systems, health actors, and our investments in health strive towards their shared end goal, rather than being co-opted by short-term self indulgence. Continuous evaluation of contribution to health capability provides substantive evidence of an initiative’s effectiveness in achieving our collective health goals. For example, empirical work in Malawi demonstrated that the true impact of health initiatives could not be known without a rigorous assessment against clear standards of governance.
WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE?
A health constitution outlines the general direction of health governance under the Health Capability Paradigm (HCP) and Provincial Globalism (PG). At the global level, Global Institute of Health and Medicine and the Global Health Council take leadership in evaluating, monitoring and assessing actors' activities against their respective standards and duties. They establish key outcomes and indicators to assess the effectiveness of systems, institutions, policies, and practices relative to governance standards in SHG and justice standards in HCP and PG. An evaluative loop of feedback in the domains of science (GIHM), governance (Global Health Council) and justice (Global Health Constitution) effectuates continuous improvement of the system. Other actors take part in checks and balances under established standards such that groups and individuals exercise collective and individual agency to hold each other accountable.
HOW DO WE DO IT?
Justice principles under HCP and PG help establish general requirements of health governance memorialized in a health constitution. We need to establish the general requirement in global health governance in the Global Health Constitution based on the SHG principles. At the global level, the Global Institute of Health and Medicine, and the Global Health Council supplement the Global Health Constitution by specifying the key outcomes and indicators relevant to each policy or action and continually evaluating them through the implementation process.
Both at domestic and global levels, other actors supplement the central institutions employing their health agency to practice checks and balances through mutual collective accountability. Hence SHG foundationally aims to develop and foster the health agency of individual and collective actors through education and by creating a space where they can exercise their health agency.