Second Intercountry Workshop on the Child Health Policy Initiative (CHPI)
Cairo, Egypt
13-16 November 2005

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Conclusions and recommendations

Conclusions

• A national child health policy is an important document that provides the necessary high-level political support and sets country directions towards fulfilling national and international commitments including the MDGs. It serves as a national reference to harmonize action to improve child health.

• Policy development is a highly demanding task that requires analytic, advocacy and writing skills as well as time.

• A well planned orientation for all relevant key decision-makers and stakeholders is essential to clarify the concept of policy, the need to have a policy, the need to have an initial focus of the document on children under-five and to inform and engage partners in the whole process

• The official establishment of a small-sized task force of committed and experienced members is essential to accomplish the work.

• The situation analysis is a fundamental step to the development of a child health policy document, and requires adequate time to be thoroughly undertaken.

• The analytical process used in the workshop was found to be a useful exercise to identify and analyze policy issues.

• The workshop provided country delegations with useful guidance on the steps of the second phase of the Initiative.

• Gaining access to data was identified by countries as a crucial but challenging task.

• Advocacy is essential throughout the process to create ownership, support and commitment.

• The experience of the five CHPI pioneer countries is very useful and provides good guidance to other countries which are about to embark on the initiative.

• WHO technical support during the situation analysis phase has been instrumental in finalizing the situation analysis reports.

• The active, useful participation of two UNICEF country offices in the workshop was highly appreciated by the respective country delegations

Recommendations

To Member States

1. The development of a national child health policy document should be a priority for each country and adequate time and resources should be allocated to it by countries.

2. Key partners should be carefully identified and fully involved in the CHPI from the very beginning of the process.

3. The process of policy issues identification and analysis practised in the workshop should be replicated at country level during the national child health policy document development.

4. The work related to this Initiative should be part of the individual workplans of the people involved rather than regarded as an additional task, in order to ensure their availability and secure their time.

5. The CHPI task force should be empowered to access all relevant data required for the situation analysis.

6. Advocacy should target decision-makers at all levels and also those who can influence the policy adoption process. This requires a variety of approaches tailored to the different target groups.

7. The following should be considered in developing the policy document:

   1. the policy document should be kept as brief and clear as possible;

   2. policy statements should be the core of the document.

8. Technical committees should be established for addressing the identified policy issues. These committees may include external people with analytic and writing skills.

To WHO and partners

9. WHO should continue to provide technical support, guidance and advocacy throughout the CHPI process, including the development of a guide on the second phase.

10. CHPI is a good opportunity to further bring together WHO, UNICEF and other partners, and can be used by countries to build national partnership for mutual support and complementarity on child health, including joint programming.

11. WHO and UNICEF should use the successful CHPI country experiences to date to advocate with governments for this policy initiative at the highest political level.