WHO benchmarks for strengthening health emergency capacities
Overview
Benchmarking is a strategic process often used by businesses and institutes to standardize performance in relation to the best practices of their sector. The World Health Organization (WHO) and partners have developed a tool with a list of benchmarks and corresponding suggested actions that can be applied to implement the International Health Regulations 2005 (IHR) and strengthen health emergency prevention, preparedness, response and resilience capacities.
The first edition of the benchmarks was published in 2019 to support countries in developing, implementing and documenting progress of national IHR or health security plans (e.g. national action plan for health security (NAPHS), national action plan for emerging infectious diseases, public health emergencies and health security and other country level plans for health emergencies). The tool has been updated to incorporate lessons from COVID-19 and other health emergencies, to align with the updated IHR monitoring & evaluation framework (IHR MEF) tools and the health systems for health security framework, and to support strengthening health emergency prevention, preparedness, response and resilience (HEPR) capacities and the Preparedness and Resilience for Emerging Threats (PRET) initiative.
The benchmarks support implementation of IHR and HEPR capacities and are broad in nature to improve health security and integrate multisectoral actions at national and subnational levels, where appropriate. The benchmark actions are designed to provide guidance for capacity development to move up capacity levels as measured by the IHR MEF, including voluntary external evaluation such as the Joint External Evaluation (JEE) tool and the States Parties Self-assessment annual reporting tool (SPAR). Other assessment tools including the Performance of Veterinary Services (PVS) Pathway (from the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH)), the Dynamic Preparedness Metric (DPM), Universal Health and Preparedness Review (UHPR) and readiness assessments can also measure improvements in capacity, with the ultimate goal to sustain an optimal level of prevention, preparedness, response and resilience for health emergencies in the country.
