WHO Has published a new report:
Evaluation of Global Health Days 2019-2023
https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/evaluation-office/report_w...
The specific objectives of this evaluation were to: 'to assess WHO’s process for planning and managing the Days, evaluate their contribution to any visible changes from 2019 to 2024 and identify key lessons and recommendations for sustainable improvements in coordination, measurement and learning'.
Below are some of the report's recommendations and comments from me:
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Recommendation 1 – Prioritization and focus: Align the mandated and non-mandated Global Health Days with the organizational priorities to ensure their strategic relevance and impact at global, regional, national and subnational levels by:
1.1. ensuring that the Days reflect the strategic priorities of the WHO General Programme of Work as well as those of the regional, national and subnational contexts;
1.2. establishing a structured process for modifying, temporarily suspending or formally concluding (“sunsetting”) specific Global Health Days based on their relevance, effectiveness and alignment with WHO’s strategic priorities, as informed by evidence-based assessments; and
1.3. presenting a biennial report to the World Health Assembly, through the Executive Board, detailing the campaign priorities for the upcoming two-year period and presenting the results from robust evaluation of the effectiveness of selected past campaign(s) and their alignment with Organizational
goals.
Recommendation 2 – Coordination and communication: Enhance the coordination of the mandated and nonmandated Global Health Days’ campaigns to ensure seamless execution and timely delivery of impactful campaign materials by:
2.1. conducting an annual joint planning exercise identifying clear milestones and deadlines to streamline the preparation and execution of each Global Health Day;
2.2. enabling regions to lead or co-lead selected Global Health Days over a two-year period, while prioritizing specific countries and regions to maximize the campaigns' relevance and reach;
2.3. enhancing collaboration among the Department of Communication, technical units, regional offices, country offices, and external partners to ensure a cohesive and well-integrated approach to campaign execution;
2.4 developing multi-year (two to three years) messages for each Global Health Day, with annual adaptations, enhancing continuous advocacy; and
2.5 creating campaign materials in accessible formats, based on target audience testing, evaluation insights and reuse of existing global, regional and national materials.
Recommendation 3 – Measurement: Establish a Monitoring and Evaluation framework for the mandated and non-mandated Global Health Days, tailored to available resources, by...
Recommendation 4 – Partnerships: Strengthen partnerships and intersectoral engagement across the three levels by:
4.1. engaging with long-term partners by involving them further in the planning, implementation and evaluation of the campaigns; and
4.2. working closer with partners to further develop the intersectional nature of the campaigns and inform audiences difficult to reach through traditional campaigning...
Recommendation 5 – Resourcing and capacity: Within resource constraints, stabilize budget allocation for the campaign by:
5.1. establishing clear and transparent funding criteria based on campaign prioritization...
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COMMENTS (NPW):
1. HIFA supports World Health Days through our social media team: Our coordinator Ben Nicholls publishes graphics on our Instagram site https://www.instagram.com/hifa_org/ with each graphic reinforcing the importance of universal access to reliable healthcare information. We find the latter to be a central consideration for (almost) all WHDs. These graphics are then amplified by our LinkedIn, Facebook and X teams.
2. Recommendation 1 suggests WHO 'temporarily suspending or formally concluding (“sunsetting”) specific Global Health Days'. I'm not sure I understand this recommendation. Is WHO in a position to 'conclude' any World Health Day? WHO can and should decide to focus its resources on supporting a limited number of WHDs, especially given budgetary resource constraints. It would seem sensible also for WHO to limit its resource inputs for selected WHDs, and consider a shift from a leader role to a support role for such WHDs, with leadership and implementation increasingly taken over by NGOs and other non-state actors in official relations with WHO.
3. The evaluation is deliberately focused on WHO's processes. But World Health Days are major collaborative events typically involving hundreds of organisations around a cause. It would be interesting to follow this report with a much broader evaluation that looks at ways for all stakeholders to work together to maximise the impact of World Health Days.
What do you think?
Best wishes, Neil
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org