Welcome back, in this session let's talk about Features of a Successful Government. But first, what is the role of a government? From a One Health perspective, the role of a government is to ensure the health and well-being of the people and all the living creatures within the borders of that country. Let's look at the six core elements of successful organizations. The mission statement, Why does an organization exist? What does it do? And preferably this mission statement should be one simple sentence. An organization should have a vision statement as well as a mission statement. What are the organization's goals? What does it seek to do in the future? Again, one sentence should suffice. What are the core values of the organization? You need to have guidelines or norms of the behavior and mindsets needed to achieve the organization's vision. What are the strategic areas of focus? What are the major areas of concern for the organization? And what needs to be improved? What are the action plans or the short-term goals or objectives of the organization? And finally, what are the strategic goals of the organization? Those are the planned long-term objectives that the organization hopes to achieve in order to obtain its vision. Let me give you the example of a national government, and in case the United States government, what is the mission and vision statement of the United States government? Well, to answer that we have to look at the preamble to the US Constitution signed in September 17th, 1787 in Philadelphia. We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, meaning not shooting at each other, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and we'll talk a bit more about that. And secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, to ordain and establish this constitution for the United States of America. So what are the action plans and the strategic goals of the US government? Well, the Constitution constitutes the strategic goals and the action plans, and it established the structure and organization of the US government. So the first ten amendments to the US Constitution are collectively called the Bill of Rights. And these Bill of Rights include amendments, including the First Amendment establishing the freedom of speech. The three branches of the US government established by the Constitution, include the legislative branch which makes the laws, the executive branch which carries out the laws, and finally the judicial branch, which interprets the laws. The US departments are agencies relevant for One Health for the purposes of our course, include the Department of Health and Human Services. Agencies include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, and the National Institutes of Health. Another department is the Department of Agriculture, the Department of the Interior, and that includes the US Geological Survey, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and finally the Environmental Protection Agency. So how do we evaluate government departments? Now, ideally governments are successful organizations. So each government department and agency should have the six core elements of successful organizations. What do they do? What's their mission statement? What's their vision statement? What do they want to do? What's their strategic goals and action plans? How will they achieve what they want to do? Governments should make publicly available their budgets and other data information so that the citizens of that country can evaluate what they're doing. How much money do these different government agencies have, and how do they spend it? Are they fulfilling their mandate, and how successful are they? When you examine a budget, each department and agency has its own budget, usually on its website. So the fiscal year for a company or for a government is not the same as a calendar year, and they do this for budgeting and accounting purposes. For example, let's look at fiscal year 2017. For most American companies fiscal year 2017 is from July 1st 2016 to June 30th 2017. For the US Government, however, fiscal year 2017 is October 1st, 2016 to September 30th 2017, so they're out of sync with most of corporate America. This change was made in 1974, and that was to give Congress more time to arrive at a budget because it can be politically difficult to arrive at a budget that everyone can agree on. Let's talk about discretionary versus mandatory budgets. In this graph, the mandatory spending constitutes about 65% of the total federal budget. Pictured here is the fiscal year 2015 mandatory and discretionary spending. So Medicare and Social Security make up much of the 65% of the mandatory budget. In contrast to the mandatory budget which is set in law, the discretionary budget is not set in law. It is determined by the president who request a certain amount of money for the bureaucracy of the government. Congress will then decide how much to appropriate each year. So the discretionary spending here in 2015 is about 30%. We will not talk about interest on debt in this course. As you recall from the previous slide where we looked at total spending which included both mandatory and discretionary, this graph here illustrates strictly discretionary spending. The military constitutes over half of the discretionary spending for fiscal year 2016. And all the other departments and agencies get varying sizes of slices of the pie. So let's evaluate the One Health relevant departments. One Health, as you recall, is the health of people animals and the environment, and also the ecosystems. So for people, the Department of Health and Human Services collects data on human health. The Centers for Disease Control collects data from each state, and the Department of Agriculture collects data on hunger and food. Looking at animals, the US Department of Agriculture collects data on food animals. The CDC collects data on animal rabies only. The US Geological Survey and the US fish and wildlife service collect data primarily on fish and wildlife. Departments and agencies relevant for environments and ecosystems include the US Geological Survey, which is part of the US Department of Interior, as well as the US Environmental Protection Agency. Questions for US residents, What are the mission statements for the Departments of Health and Human Services, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of the Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency? Do these different departments and agencies have vision statements? If so, what are they? What was the National Institutes of Health, which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services, budget for the most recently completed fiscal year? What was the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, which is part of the US Department of Agriculture, what's its budget for the most recently completed fiscal year? Given your findings for bullets two and three, what do you think are the US government's spending priorities regarding human disease research compared to agriculture and food research? Finally, which government department and/or agency funds research on environmental or ecosystem health? How much total funding is available for these endeavors? Questions for non US residents, if you do not live in the United States, What is the mission and vision statement of your nation's government? What are its action plans and strategic goals? If your nation does not have a constitution, what does it have instead? How is your government organized? Which ministries or departments are relevant to human, animal and environmental or ecosystem health in your nation's governments? What are the budgets of the ministries or departments relevant to One Health? How much funding do they devote to the health of people, animals and the environment? And with that I'd like to thank you for your time and attention.
