Central Asian Republics Information Network (CARINFONET)
The Central Asian Republics Information Network (CARINFONET) is a collaborative network of five countries and a platform for improving health information systems. It promotes collaboration within and between countries in the region of central Asia to produce relevant, objective and accurate statistics.
Ensuring the availability of accurate, timely, relevant and internationally comparable data is at the top of the Network’s agenda, as this allows policy-makers to identify the most pressing health challenges and to develop appropriate measures to address them.
CARINFONET works in the following priority areas, with the overall purpose of strengthening health information systems across central Asian countries in the WHO European Region:
- generating and sharing relevant information and experience;
- harmonizing and aligning activities;
- enhancing access to and dissemination of health information;
- capacity-building;
- collaboration and cooperation;
- communication and advocacy.
CARINFONET achievements include:
- organizing and adopting training programmes for human resource capacity-building in the area of health information systems, including training programmes on classifications, generating information, data sources, population health surveillance and monitoring, and information dissemination;
- organizing network steering group meetings and developing an action plan based on the needs of the CARINFONET countries.
Rationale
CARINFONET was originally founded in 1996 but ceased operations in 2006 owing to lack of funding. At the express request of Member States, the WHO Regional Office for Europe relaunched CARINFONET in 2014 to support better and more targeted approaches to health information system strengthening in the region of central Asia. The Network comes under the umbrella of the European Health Information Initiative (EHII), which is a WHO network committed to improving the information that underpins health policies throughout the WHO European Region.
Health information is the foundation of strong health systems, and CARINFONET’s commitment to helping countries is part of larger efforts geared towards strengthening national health information systems. This is a priority area of focus also identified in WHO’s European Programme of Work.
countries share epidemiological profiles, geographical closeness and a common historical and cultural background. For this reason, strengthened collaboration between countries in the Network will stimulate population surveillance, research on health and health systems. This work is in line with the Sustainable Development Goals and WHO’s European Programme of Work (2020–2025), as well as WHO’s Thirteenth General Programme of Work 2019–2023.
To learn more or join CARINFONET
CARINFONET relies on a core group, providing expert input, and a wider Network, comprising interested parties with no conflicts of interest. Broad membership is a prerequisite for achieving CARINFONET goals, so the Network calls on health information stakeholders operating in the region of central Asia to join. Those interested in learning more about or joining CARINFONET should email euhiudata@who.int.
