Capacities for emergency preparedness strengthened in all countries The Secretariat will support countries to:
strengthen areas of low capacity highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic through targeted technical support for legislative preparedness, urban preparedness, leadership and governance, community empowerment, logistics and supply chains, deployable human resources, health system adaptability for health security, health facility preparedness and subnational public health capacities underpinned by stronger linkages and coordination between health care and public health systems, and whole-of-society engagement;
build stronger capacities for health security preparedness at the human?animal interface in order to address identified risks, including zoonotic diseases of known and unknown origin, through the One Health approach. WHO will continue working with its partners in animal health, mainly the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the World Organisation for Animal Health, to support countries in developing capacities at the human?animal interface. The COVID-19 pandemic and other recent outbreaks have again underlined this urgent need;
identify gaps in national capabilities to collect, analyse and report data related to the International Health Regulations (2005) and other data, which will inform capacity strengthening for health security and preparedness. To facilitate capacity strengthening, WHO will undertake to map all domestic and internationally available technical and financial resources that can be used for national and regional health security preparedness. In order to address identified gaps in preparedness, the Secretariat will support countries to develop, cost, finance and integrate national disease or hazard-specific preparedness plans (including for the COVID-19 pandemic response) with broader and comprehensive national action plans for health security and health sector plans, working with donors to reduce duplication, enhance efficiencies and build sustainability, including through the development of national investment cases for preparedness;
ensure progress and collaboration, and periodically realign resources with gaps through processes and tools, including resource mapping to support the evaluation process for national action plans for health security, and WHO?s Strategic Partnership Portal for health security, which supports countries, partners and donors in aligning their investments with the plans for strengthening health security. This will require regular monitoring with the engagement of stakeholders; and
scale up preparedness in special contexts, including urban settings, small island developing States, overseas territories and conflict settings. WHO?s regional offices will play a leading role in this. Regional and country offices will also lead efforts to foster engagement with non-traditional health stakeholders, including parliamentarians, ministries of finance, ministries of foreign affairs, community leaders, sporting organizations and faith-based organizations, to build a multisectoral, whole-of-society approach to emergency preparedness and capacity-building. Countries prepared for health emergencies