Risk reduction and preparedness

Preparing the health sector to face humanitarian challenges

The significantly increasing disasters in the Eastern Mediterranean Region, including the flood in Pakistan earlier this year, was a wake-up call for countries who do not have emergency preparedness systems in place.  As a result, the move towards building a culture of risk reduction and emergency preparedness has become a priority among the humanitarian partners at all levels.  WHO has taken up this recent initiative and aims to:

The idea is to strengthen the resilience of communities—the first responders to any disasters.  National level polity, planning and multisectoral coordination and information management have been taken up as the essential areas to further facilitate these actions.

Response and operations

Recent humanitarian reforms have accorded WHO the mandate to manage and lead the health cluster, and as such, have brought to the forefront, resource intensive and critical operational responsibilities for WHO. As an agency this implies that in addition to providing technical support and guidance to Member States and other stakeholders, WHO has also to be an operational agency in itself and will effectively and efficiently implement humanitarian health response interventions and lead, manage and coordinate the activities of health cluster partners.

The Regional Office has to readily adapt to this learning curve and has strived to shoulder health cluster leadership responsibilities in acute as well as complex emergency situations in the Region through support provided to ministries of health, training of existing staff, recruitment of additional manpower to strengthen country and field capacities, strengthening of stores and logistical capacities and developing an active roster of emergency health response experts, operational managers and health coordinators to meet potential surges in the future. For response readiness, the Regional Office has increased UN interagency collaboration at regional level in the humanitarian sector and support to UN country teams, as well as Member States, in the development and updating of contingency plans and critical activities in this regard.

Early recovery and transition

In the Eastern Mediterranean Region there are five countries in complex emergency: Afghanistan, Iraq, occupied Palestinian territory, Somalia and Sudan, although  Iraq is considered to be in recovery from conflict. A further two countries—Islamic Republic of Iran and Pakistan—are recovering from major natural disasters. To ensure maximum support to those countries suffering from complex emergencies and ongoing conflict, WHO is working on a transition and recovery strategy for the health sector to outline and prioritize goals, activities, functions, partners and guidelines for the mobilization of resources. The idea is to build a resilient health sector to best cope with any hazards.