INTERNATIONAL

PROJECT MANAGEMENT
ASSIGNMENT -1

GLOBAL PROGRAM FOR AVIAN INFLUENZA CONTROL AND

HUMAN PANDEMIC PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE

Group 5 Fortune

Avinandita Dutta
Gaurav Deshmukh
Omkar Dhikale
Rohit Sonawane
Suren Saptasagar

Introduction
Avian influenza virus or bird flu occurring at irregular intervals mainly in the South-East and
Central Asia has now spread around Africa, the Middle East, and Europe since its first
detection in Hong Kong in 1997. Since 2003, hundreds of millions of birds and 70% of the
infected people died, and there was estimated economic loss to the Asian poultry sector of
10 bill USD(approx.).

Eventually it transformed from a standard to an international project and many global

organizations came together to prevent another pandemic.

Characteristics of Global Program for Avian Influenza (GPAI)

1. Limited
The World Banks global program for avian influenza control, human pandemic
preparedness and response has definite time frames. The program is scheduled into
immediate-short, short-medium and medium-long term. But in case of drug development
usually it takes longer undefined time due to various reasons like clinical testing,
information sharing, implementation of rules and regulation of different countries. It has a
clearly defined beneficial expected outcome. The idea of development of the drug seems to
be concrete if the long term objectives that are stated are followed.

2. Unique
This project is unique as it involves participation and cooperation of different organizations,
countries, people etc. (vast list of stakeholders). Since this is a global project including 25
countries and multiple specialized organizations in each country, this project does not follow
any prevalent protocols and approach.

3. Risky
The global massive project seems to be risky as stated in the issues in the case. There can be
misappropriation of funds. Hasty application of the drug might result in complicated side
effects due to lack of inefficient testing. Different cultural and linguistic differences may lead
to misinterpretation of data and misuse of data for one's own financial gain.

Global Program for Avian Influenza (GPAI)

As the other project management, global program for avian influenza is divided into four
phases.

Phase 1-Initiating
As to control and prevent it from spreading, World Bank tied up with the other
organizations like UNs Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), World Health Organization
(WHO), together with the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), designed a Global
Program for Avian Influenza (GPAI) in 2005.

Phase 2-Planning
The program is planned to be implemented over three time frames: immediate to short (1
3 years), short to medium (46 years) and medium to long-term (710 years).

These global organizations come together to surpass the own organizational constraints and
effectively use each others abilities like funds, technical assistance and knowledge sharing
support by World Bank etc.

Phase 3-Executing
The governments of 25 different countries, together with many non-government bodies,
private entities and international scientific, developmental, humanitarian and security
organizations helped in executing the plan.

Phase 4-Completion
The project is still ongoing as it was designed on different time frames for different
countries keeping project objectives in mind.

Major Issues
1. Multiple Organizations and Nations involved
With respect to the number of organizations involved globally, long time frame and dense
network of monetary inflows and outflows, the challenge to manage the program was
enormous. Moreover, as different countries had different government structures,
healthcare systems and the spread of infection, it was a complex mix of tailor made projects
to form a single program.

2. Program consists of multiple projects

The GPAI focused on multiple projects that included diminishing the global threat of a
human pandemic, stabilizing poultry production supporting a trade in poultry and poultry
products, increasing human and food safety and improving the livelihoods of the rural poor.

The challenge was adaption to the local needs of the projects according to the situation.
Taking these projects and managing them globally towards a single goal of program involved
variety of stakeholders. Also, multiple projects combined with multiple countries operated
by multiple organizations created a dense network of program structure. These factors
increased to project scope and the efforts to realize it.

3. Resistance from Indonesian government

The Indonesian government was afraid of the use of samples for commercial purposes
without its permission. Indonesia feels it had been cheated by WHO before, as it allegedly
had passed on samples to companies. Experts consider the withholding of the samples as a
great risk to global health but understand the tough stance of the Indonesian government
as it would have to pay millions of dollars for vaccines to pharmaceutical companies which
would have obtained the samples for free. They feel that it is only ethical to share risks and
benefits.

This issue had initially impacted to progress of anti-flu vaccine development. Due to this lack
of mutual trust between key stakeholders, it affected the multiple facets of program starting
from developing of vaccine, poultry production stabilization to increasing human and food
safety.

4. Communication Problem
Lack of support for communications. People need clearer and more comprehensive
information regarding the risk and outbreak of the disease.

Stakeholders Analysis

Conclusion and Recommendation

Stakeholders need clearer and more comprehensive information regarding the risk
and outbreak of the disease. Major problem lies with multiple stakeholders collaborating
together without a significant central control which create complex management networks.

One of the probable solution can be setting up a central organization which will
govern the program. Such governance eliminates significant amount of problems at large,
which were faced by GPAI program. This enables more coordination between stakeholders
and reduces the central problem of communication. This also improves trust of the
stakeholders and problems, similar to the one faced with respect to Indonesian
government, can be reduced. Basic problem about anticipated monetary exploitation can be
controlled with deployment of centralized cost definition. Costs of the developed drugs
would be controlled centrally. Important aspect with regards to stakeholder analysis,
centralized organization can effectively manage the stakeholder interests thereby ensuring
maximum effectiveness of the program.