Bargaining power of African countries in the world health organisation: role of economic coalition

This article analyses the role of the economic coalition in improving the bargaining power of countries in the African region at the World Health Organisation (WHO), using data from the World Health Assembly (WHA) from 2010 to 2019. The study is based on the observation that this region’s bargaining power is the weakest in the organisation. This bargaining power is obtained by linearly combining two simple indices (calculated using the Shapley–Shubik method). He therefore analyses two ways of improving this indicator: a coalition of countries by regional grouping within the meaning of the WHO, then a reconfiguration of this coalition on the basis of economic unions. The results show that by forming intra-regional alliances, Africa increases its bargaining power and gains an average of two places on the podium. This position is even better when coalitions are formed on the basis of economic unions. This leads to an increase in this region’s bargaining power of twice that of the initial coalition, and also improves its position on the podium.