57th session of the Regional Committee for the Eastern Mediterranean

Capacity-building needed for emergency preparedness, response and recovery in the Region

Ministers of health of the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region have emphasized the need for Member States, with the technical support of WHO, to increase efforts to develop their emergency preparedness and response plans to ensure that they are better prepared to handle emergencies and disasters.

At the fifty-seventh session of the Regional Committee for the Eastern Mediterranean meeting in Cairo, Egypt, ministers of health endorsed a new resolution, which aims to reduce the health consequences of regional emergencies, such as the recent flood in Pakistan and conflict in Yemen. Considering protracted emergencies in the Region, as well as the increased frequency of new events, the need to focus on capacity-building within the health sector to build resilient health systems in order to reduce avoidable deaths was highlighted. Read more >>

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The flooding in Pakistan in 2010 was just one example of how disasters and emergencies can leave damaged health services struggling to provide medical care at a time when their services are most needed. The flood in Pakistan has demonstrated well the extreme need of safety of health facilities in terms of resilient structure and planned function.

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Consolidated Appeal Process 2011

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has called for USD 7.4 billion to provide urgent humanitarian aid to 50 million people in 28 countries worldwide. As Health Cluster lead, WHO worked with all health partners to elaborate the health component of the appeals, providing a careful analysis of the expected needs of affected populations and planning inter cluster cooperation to support the health of people in crisis situations.

Watch the CAP launch film >> | Download the 2011 Humanitarian appeal (pdf) >>

World health report 2010



Governments worldwide are struggling to pay for health care as populations get older, more people suffer from chronic diseases, and new and more expensive treatments appear making health costs soar. To help countries review their health financing systems and strategies alongside their national health policies and plans, WHO presented the World health report 2010 at a ministerial conference on health financing in Germany on 22 November, 2010. This year's report gives governments practical guidance on ways to finance health care, taking evidence from all over the world to show how countries can adjust their health financing mechanisms so that more people have access to the health care they need, even in emergencies.

Read press release >>
Read the World Health Report 2010 >>


Making prevention pay



A joint report from the World Bank and the United Nations offers governments a number of measures to prevent death, destruction, financial loss and higher health care costs as a result of natural disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes and flooding. The 250-page report, titled "Natural hazards, unnatural disasters: the economics of effective prevention", was released in Washington and directly targets the world's finance ministers by presenting evidence for countries to reduce their vulnerability to natural hazards so that they can develop their economies in a sustainable and cost-effective way.

Read press release >>

Read the "Natural Hazards, Unnatural Disasters: The Economics of Effective Prevention" report >>


Making cities resilient



For the next two years and beyond, the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) will campaign with its partners to spread awareness among cities and local governments on the urgency of reducing risks and becoming resilient to disasters. Continue reading >>