By Dr Nicholas Aribino

On January 20, 2025, Mr Trump signed an executive order withdrawing the USA from the World Health Organisation (WHO). The rationale behind the ejection of the USA from WHO was that WHO had mismanaged the COVID -19 pandemic and parri passu had failed to adopt necessary reforms. This move may be regarded as a kick in the teeth for African leaders as they often build into their national fiscal spaces votes from WHO for health care. Mr Trump is coming into government from a business world where there is no free lunch and where every asset should sweat for the continued growth of a company. For Mr Trump, relations should be built on the basis of quid pro quo. Given his financial mind, Mr Trump’s actions are also informed by the notion of cost benefit analysis. By extension, Mr Trump views the USA’s international commitment to the UN agencies as being too cozy especially for African leaders that he has repeatedly characterised as self-seeking and corrupt out and out. It is the purpose of this opinion piece to discuss the withdrawal of the USA from the WHO and in the process intimating that every cloud has a silver lining.
The USA has been the biggest contributor to the UN. From 1948 to date the USA has contributed USD 10 billion towards the WHO. The ramifications of the USA’s withdrawal from WHO are too ghastly to cogitate given that the biggest social infrastructure of health and childcare in Africa has been borne by WHO. For example, WHO has been offering ancillary support in the areas of research and development, HIV and AIDs, malaria, water and sanitation, measles, cancer, cholera, tuberculosis, immunisation and epilepsy, among other things. WHO also has staff from African countries whose jobs may be on the line as a result of this development. The withdrawal of the USA from WHO may invite significant cuts in votes for Africa leading to the areas that have been supported by WHO struggling to stay afloat. For this writer, Trump’s initiative comes with hard lessons for the African leaders. These hard lessons are akin to the lessons that are given to eaglets by the mother eagle when it wants them to learn to fly and to fend for themselves; the mother eagle destroys the nest. For the eaglets to survive, they will need to adopt and adapt to the changes the hard way by learning every trick in the book. African leaders ought to appreciate that in every situation there is a nugget of gold and that a bent in the road does not mean the end of the road unless one fails to navigate it. With respect to this development under discussion, African leaders should come together to create their own intergovernmental organisation that mirrors the functions of WHO. This intergovernmental organisation can comprise all the 55 African countries and can be called African Health Organisation (AHO). Africa has expanded capabilities and capacities that can drive the idea of AHO to realise its funded mandate of providing healthcare to the inhabitants of Africa. Power lies in the collective. Africa has mineral wealth and medical professionals that can anchor the idea of AHO.
AHO can be an organ of African Union head quartered in any one of the African countries and its personnel can be drawn from people with the requisite expert power from Africa. The infrastructure that can be used to strengthen this structure (AHO) can come from contributions made from all the 55 countries. AHO can engage in boundary spanning with civil society organisations within Africa for financial, technical and logistical support. The resources of AHO could be deployed in health emergencies (pandemic preparedness and response), staff strengthening, acquisition of medical equipment and materials. The organogram of AHO can be made up along the lines of other regional bodies with people appointed based on their competence and good character. African leaders ought to realise that the Northern countries that have global influence like IMF, WHO, WB, UNICEF and other UN agencies thrive on ancient ill-gotten wealth from Africa during the epoch of colonialism and slavery. Africa should consider this ancient ill-gotten wealth as spilt milk. The good thing is that its just milk that was spilt, but the producer of that milk, which is the cow is still alive. The cow in this case is the continent of Africa through its constituent parts (countries). For example, under the belly of the DRC lies mineral wealth worth USD 24 trillion but the DRC is one of the most impoverished African nations. Zimbabwe is also one of the lucky few African countries with numerous minerals, one of which is lithium that can leverage economic growth, yet its economy is tanking. Sudan’s and Nigeria’s area of gifting is oil, yet their citizens are wallowing deep dyed poverty. If the resources of these African countries can be harnessed to good use through votes fenced off for AHO, Africa can easily forget about the USA’s withdrawal from WHO. African countries need to work together through AU to create strong institutions that can serve Africans in times of both peace and conflict, and AHO is one structure that can rise to this occasion.
Storms come with opportunities, this storm under discussion should open the African leaders’ third eye for forming strong synergies around AHO. Sun Tzu, a great Chinese military thought leader advises generals to always be like water that adapts itself to the configuration of the ground. The pulling out of the USA from WHO should stimulate thinking as if there is no box for African leaders so that they can survive this storm.

By Shadreck Zangairai

In one of my previous articles, I presented a topic titled, ‘Can organisations control the pace at which they change’ where I mentioned about emergent and planned change. I got a call from one of the avid followers of this column arguing that emergent change dictates pace in this complex environment as opposed to planned change, hence there can be no planned change in such a situation. I admit that no one has a monopoly of ideas or knowledge, so in that debate, I concurred with him on some of his arguments but we differed on some, which prompted me to write about this topic. It is an undeniable fact that modern businesses are faced with a number of challenges dictated upon them by the turbulent operational environment. The need for change is therefore inevitable if organizations are to remain competitive and survive. There are however divergent views on the most appropriate approach to change and options are between planned and emergent change. Proponents of the emergent approach argue that it is a logical alternate to planned change, whilst advocates of planned change believe that emergent change is just but a complement to planned change. However, I have a strong view that planned change and emergent change are not alternates but complementary to each other. In other words there is no ‘one best way’ or ‘one size fits all’ approach to change.
Organisations and Change Management
The world today is unpredictable because of the fast moving and complex change and no one knows what tomorrow will hold. What is true is that it will be different, more complex and diverse. When change is mentioned, what quickly comes to mind is Top- Down (planned) which is management driven. It is initiated from management down to the lower level. This type of change is suitable in market driven economics such as UK & USA. Using this type of change in Zimbabwe might be difficult because of the economic and political instability. I would not have done justice to my views without starting my arguments by separately explaining the emergent and planned approaches to change.
Emergent Change Approach
Emergent change is unpredictable, unintentional and it can come from anywhere, anytime. If organisations plan for change, they will be not aware of the internal and external factors that might affect their plan. A key assumption on emergent approaches is that for effective change, managers must have a clear understanding of organisational structure, strategies , people and culture. This assist in selecting the most appropriate approach to change and help to weed out barriers to change. Furthermore emergent approach views change as a process that unfolds through the interplay of multiple factors within the organizations. Its rationale is characterised by unforeseen events, disruptions, breakdowns and opportunities that emerge within that period.
However emergent approaches to change may not be completely considered as alternatives to planned change. I concur with some critics who question the applicability of the approach to unique organisational contexts. I believe that organisational performance depends heavily on situational variables and this vary from organisation to organisation, therefore, managers differ in their strategies for change. Since organisations are different in structure, strategy and culture it is not possible to rely on a single approach. I also feel that it is limited to the organisational boundaries where it is applied and how it can be applied.
In addition, the emergent approach to change do not provide an agreed set of methods or guidelines on how to deal with change especially if the organisation is within a turbulent environment. So it is not the best model but it depends on the organisation’s nature, the existing environment and the structure of the organisation. Defining these factors will assist managers to select the correct change model relevant to the organisation, for example a decision to change a type of product by Delta would equate to a pre-planned decision, therefore, it would be ideal to use the planned approach model.
This type of change just manifests itself and is reactive in nature. An example will be communication through WhatsApp, Skype and X (formerly Twitter) that evolved as a new way of communicating without any correspondence to change towards that direction. It happens in a spontaneous, unpredictable and unplanned way. Change in this case will be as a result of a continuous process of experimentation and adaptation to the ever-changing needs of the environment. Change is achieved through a multitude of small scale incremental changes which lead to a major transformation or reconfiguration of the organization. The role of the managers ceases to be planning but to create an enabling organizational climate which leads to innovation. The change is largely in response to the turbulent environment which defies logical planning.
Planned Change Approach
This is the change we deliberately seek. Planned change is pro-active in nature. It is about moving from one state to another in a structured manner following prescribed models or paths. Planned change takes the view that change is intentional, predictable, deliberate, purposeful and systematic and one can pre-plan for it. Planned change was coined by Kurt Lewin and is at times referred to as prescriptive or the Lewinian approach. Planned change therefore is a product of conscious reasoning and action. It is premised on the understanding that the environment is stable. Planned change is usually driven from the top to the bottom focusing on organizational continuous improvement.
Most change leaders are comfortable with planned change than emergent. It is a controlled change with fairly clean boundaries, definable benefits, and vision for the future. Planned change is what is sought unlike the unplanned change which organisations are forced to accept and integrate. For example, technological products such as iPod and iTunes were designed to transform how people buy and listen to music. Their manifestation was planned change by Apple. However, this resulted in unplanned change for Music Record companies such as Gramma, Zimbabwe Music Cooperation (ZMC), Records and Tape Production (RTP), that is if one is coming closer home. Their market diminished gradually. Engaging emergent change in this example would mean how accessible the music and other forms of media are to people. A new or perfect song can be summoned at any time from people’s devices but Apple did not make this happen. People could have resisted the planned change by Apple which could have affected iPod since its inception in 2003. To support this, Apple did not write any memo or letter but the market simply coordinated with each other to evolve on how to listen to the music.
However planned change has got its critics. It is based on the assumption that organisations operate under constant conditions and that everything moves in a pre-planned manner. Because of the current fast changing environment, this approach is weakened. Again, by laying down planning schedules and objectives in advance, it means that the change process is dependent on decision makers who might not be aware of the implications of the plans. In addition, planned change presumes that all stakeholders involved in the change process are willing and interested in implementing it, yet forgetting organizational politics and conflict. Because of such criticism, emergent approach has gained ground. One author, Weick, in 2000, argued that though planned change gets credit from decision makers for delivering new survival strategies but they rarely change the organisational structure and problems usually recur.
To be continued next week!