Checking progress at WHO

The World Health Organization (WHO) held the first of its twice-yearly Executive Board meetings for 2016 at the end of January.  

These meetings are a chance to check progress on key work areas, and IAPO were represented by Governing Board Chair Jolanta Bilińska, and Hussain Jafri from Alzheimer’s Pakistan.

Key items up for discussion were the ongoing WHO Reform, which crucially involves relations with NGOs, academic institutions and professional associations. You may recall that we have made statements in reference to the Framework for engagement with non-State actors (Agenda item 5.3) several times, and WHO member states are continuing their negotiations with a view to signing it off at the World Health Assembly in May.

In our statement, IAPO were most concerned about a proposed new category of engagement, called NGO ‘accreditation’, for which, the paper proposed, organizations would potentially need to carry out in-depth and resource-intensive scrutiny of members, which we consider may not be proportionate for not-for-profit membership organizations that bring a unique voice to WHO collaborations.

We also submitted a statement on WHO plans on the sustainable development goals (Agenda item 7.2) and highlighted that we would be working with our members to support them in holding national governments to account for progress to establish and strengthen universal health coverage, which all countries have signed up to.

You can read IAPO’s statements here, and we will update you with feedback from the meeting that may be of interest.

Photo: @IntDiabetesFed