During the Ebola epidemic last year, Taiwan had no way of contributing to the aid effort under way in Africa in any official capacity. After the earthquakes in Nepal last month, the Nepalese government initially refused assistance from the government.
In March, the WHO updated the International Health Regulations list of authorized ports and harbors, with Taiwanese ports still listed as in China. This year also coincided with the end of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, and the world’s governments are now negotiating draft sustainable development goals for the post-2015 development agenda, a discussion from which Taiwan has been excluded.