WHO headquarters, in collaboration with the Regional Office and the WHO Office for the European Region, held a tabletop exercise workshop in Ankara, Turkey, from 5 to 11 June 2011 to support the development of IHR core capacities.

The aim of the workshop was to provide participants with the confidence and ability to develop a tabletop exercise to test IHR (2005) core capacities. The main objectives were to outline WHO's event management process under the IHR, describe the IHR core capacities and indicators, and demonstrate how tabletop exercises can be used to test core capacities. The workshop included 35 communicable disease and emergency response experts from 16 countries of the two WHO regions.