ABSTRACT
This chapter identifies three approaches to strengthening health systems capacity to respond to emerging pandemics and outline key implementation considerations at various levels of governance. The chapter begins by identifying and defining the breadth of challenges associated with pandemics for health systems, and the evidence available to strengthen responses to them. Effective pandemic governance is more important now than ever, especially given those pandemic risk factors like urbanization, hypermobility, trans-border trade, rapid population growth and changes to the environment and food systems have all increased in tandem with the demands of globalization. Recent experiences with global pandemics have forced the international community to consider whether current global pandemic governance arrangements are adequate. The chapter examines challenges posed by pandemics and provided analysis of three approaches to address them at the sub-national, national and global levels. It also identified key implementation considerations, including barriers to be overcome and potential windows of opportunity to make substantial gains.
