Good governance must be introduced globally

Editor—With reference to the letter by Armstrong et al, like all doctors, I too regret the suffering of the people of Afghanistan.¹ But I find the idea of “doctors against war” rather quaint. We need to look at the role of governments in inflicting suffering on their peoples. Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo), Somalia, Ethiopia—the list is a long one indeed.

Rather like the NHS, what the world needs is an effective means of implementing good governance—not talking about it, but actually weeding bad government out. We need first to define good governance. This is easier than defining terrorism because the human rights agenda of the United Nations is an excellent starting point. We then need to measure governments' policies and actions against the agreed definition and act when governance is perceived by the United Nations to be either tyrannical or incompetent. Of course, the actions to be taken will be difficult, delicate, and often painful. It is best to care for the poor people of Afghanistan (to name but one country) by ensuring good governance. The concept of non-interference in a country's internal affairs should be scrapped and the UN (suitably reformed) should judge every government periodically. These are difficult issues to grapple with, but if we truly care about the sufferings of whole populations we must begin to globalise good governance.