Assessment of capacities through use of voluntary tools

In compliance with resolution WHA68.5 (2015) on the recommendations of the Review Committee on Second Extensions for Establishing National Public Health Capacities and on IHR Implementation, including the recommendation that the Secretariat should develop options “to move from exclusive self-evaluation to approaches that combine self-evaluation, peer review and voluntary external evalua­tions involving a combination of domestic and independent experts”, the action plan proposes voluntary instruments that could be applied by the States Parties in addition to the obligatory self-assessment tool. These include joint external evaluations, simulation exercises and after action reviews. The Secre­tariat has developed technical tools and will revise and adapt them in the light of experience gained from the use of the voluntary instruments. The provision of support to States Parties is not conditional on these voluntary assessments being conducted. In addition, as recommended by the Review Committee, States Parties should urgently strengthen their current self-assessment system and implement in-depth reviews of significant disease outbreaks and public health events.

States Parties may consider the use of voluntary tools to complement the assessment and monitoring of core capacities under the IHR (2005).

The Regional Office, in collaboration with key partners, will provide technical support to States Parties upon request to use the voluntary instruments for monitoring and evaluation of IHR implementation.