Respond
Effective emergency response means life-saving health interventions are implemented to ensure that affected populations have timely access to quality health services. This reduces the health impact of the emergency, ensures public safety, meets peoples’ subsistence needs and eventually saves lives.
The WHO Health Emergencies Programme (WHE) supports countries to give rapid access to health services for populations affected by health emergencies of any type. This begins with assisting the national ministries of health to identify the most immediate needs in emergencies, and coordinating aid efforts in areas such as rapid risk assessment, disease control measures, risk communication and others.
WHO works closely with health partners to pre-position essential health packages to be delivered during emergencies. WHO coordinates a network of skilled specialists (Emergency Medical Teams (EMTs), Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN) and standby partners) who can be rapidly deployed to save lives.
WHO leads the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Global Health Cluster, a partnership between United Nations agencies, international organizations and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Based on a joint workplan, the Global Health Cluster helps coordinate humanitarian health action in emergencies. The Global Health Cluster is enabling the Regional Office for Europe to respond to the current humanitarian crises in Ukraine and in the Syrian Arab Republic, with agencies working in and from Turkey.
The Emergency Response Framework
The WHO Emergency Response Framework (ERF) is an internal standardized mechanism that is used across the entire Organization to inform of the extent, complexity and duration of the required response to an emergency. It ensures that WHO acts quickly and mobilizes the resources needed to support the affected countries.
WHO’s operational response to emergencies is managed through the application of the Incident Management System (IMS). WHO applies the IMS regardless of the underlying hazard, or the scale or operational context of the emergency. The IMS approach is internationally recognized as best practice for emergency management.
IMS describes WHO’s critical functions for emergency response as:
- leadership;
- partner coordination;
- information and planning;
- health operations and technical expertise;
- operations support and logistics; and
- finance and administration.
The ERF allows WHO’s contingency fund for emergencies (CFE), or the Regional Office’s rapid response accounts, to provide emergency funding in the short term to fill the critical gap before funds from other sources are released. This “no-regrets” policy applies to any expenditure incurred during the first 3 months of an acute emergency.
