National Workforce Capacity for essential public health functions: Fourth Steering Committee
A global consensus to strengthen public health has emerged over the past few years. The Global Health Summit, in May 2021, and its Rome Declaration recognized the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the reversal of public health gains and the sacrifices from the health and care workforce. The Rome Declaration subsequently informed the 2021 G20 Italia Declaration of Health Ministers, which promotes investment in health systems and public health workforce strengthening as a pre-requisite for all countries.
Responding to this diplomatic consensus, WHO convened a global partnership of associations, institutions, and schools of public health, represented by their national, regional and global bodies, to determine a plan of coordinated action among countries, WHO and partners. This resulted in a five-year Roadmap and its two-year Action Plan to align WHO and partner contributions in order to strengthen ‘National workforce capacity to implement the essential public health functions, including emergency preparedness and response’ (hereafter “Roadmap”).
The Eastern Mediterranean Public Health Network (EMPHNET) is hosting the fourth Steering Committee meeting in Amman, Jordan from 22-23 October 2024. Where previous meetings in Geneva (October 2022), London (February 2023) and Rome (July 2023) focused on aligning the vision, agreeing on an action plan and developing a set of guidance around the three action areas of defining essential public health functions, mapping and measuring occupations and strengthening competency based education, the fourth Steering Committee aims to harness WHO and partner network capacity to accelerate implementation and progress in countries around the world.
Eight early adopter countries from a variety of socioeconomic contexts will provide insights on implementation experience to date.
About the Roadmap
Achieving and sustaining progress towards global health goals such as universal health coverage and health security requires a health and care workforce that can deliver the full range of essential public health functions, including emergency preparedness and response. As countries recover and turn attention to investments in health systems to meet diverse challenges, now is an opportune time to bolster the public health workforce, including those personnel charged with emergency preparedness and response functions. This roadmap is the result of joint efforts across leading public health and emergency response experts, organizations and associations.
About EMPHNET
EMPHNET was originally established as the umbrella organization for field epidemiology training programs (FETPs) in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR) with the purpose of connecting and supporting the region’s FETPs whose epidemiological capacities prove essential, especially in the context of the EMR’s complex public health profile. It has subsequently evolved into a leading network for the region on public health. EMPHNET has been pivotal in providing rapid support and technical assistance during public health emergencies, fostering regional collaboration and resilience. EMPHNET’s primary mission is to prevent and control diseases by supporting the public health workforce, conducting operational research, strengthening public health programs, and promoting knowledge exchange and networking while working with partners and collaborators.
About the Steering Committee
The Steering Committee comprises over 75 members, including government, associations, institutions and schools of public health civil society organisations and philanthropic partners. The active contributions of the Steering committee have been pivotal in developing and convening to endorse a collection of technical tools to be adapted for country context to benchmark and create action plans.
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