The World Health Organization (WHO) is undergoing a crisis of credibility and challenge. Having been subjected to a severe financial crisis and criticisms of its management of pandemics such as the H1N1 flu case and the outbreak of Ebola, with a new Director-General at its helm, it is an ideal time to review the WHO's past and current achievements including on-going operations and reported failures. Whilst time is given to recurrent attacks on WHO performance, it is balanced by also highlighting the WHO's leadership, its member states, and its influence on other actors, NGOs and business. As such, this study reviews the WHO's actions in the most visible programmes such as SARS, H1N1, Ebola and also smallpox, malaria, onchocerciasis, polio and AIDS. The author also discusses the desirable balance between operational and normative functions and proposals for reform of the Organization.

Yves Beigbeder's splendid scholarship comes at a pivotal moment for WHO-after its widely criticized response to Ebola. Will the Organization become the global health leader it was meant to be? Or will member states starve it of funding, as its capabilities wither? Yves Beigbeder's important ?book illuminates these?vital questions?, urging, rightfully, for a reenergized WHO to fight global health crises arising today and into the future. - Lawrence O'Gostin, Professor, Georgetown University and Director, World Health Organization Collaborating Center on National & Global Health Law.