11. How does WHO/Europe facilitate work across sectors?

The SDGs are interconnected and cut across sectors. As such, they provide an ideal basis on which governments can break down silos through collaboration with partners.

WHO/Europe is well placed to bring a wide range of actors together in pursuit of the SDGs. The long-standing collaboration between health and environmental sectors has produced significant results. The European Environment and Health Process has successfully taken a multisectoral approach to addressing the environmental determinants of health, which account for up to 20% of the WHO European Region’s preventable disease burden. The Transport, Health and Environment Pan-European Programme (THE PEP), undertaken in partnership with the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), is another example of excellent intersectoral collaboration.

WHO/Europe supports Member States in their intersectoral work on health and health equity through documenting, understanding, and drawing lessons from both well established and new practices and initiatives. A mapping exercise of intersectoral action in the Region is currently ongoing to produce an analytical framework to facilitate this work.