Migration continues to be an essential ingredient of socioeconomic development everywhere.
Whether it is a case of people moving from the countryside to cities to find work, or people crossing seas and borders to meet host country demands for new l...abour, migrants are an integral part of the modern world. They bring with them new skills and talents, and a willingness to take on jobs that host societies have difficulty filling. Despite this, migrants tend to be overlooked by many health and social service systems. They are also vulnerable to exclusion, stigma and discrimination, particularly if “undocumented” or irregular. Today, in the context of COVID-19, a neglect of migrants will make it impossible to stem the pandemic.
These Notes are designed to remind national and local authorities that the war against COVID-19 cannot be won if migrants are forgotten; unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno”, or one for all, and all for one, must guide the fight against COVID-19.
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The Quality Criteria for Health National Adaptation Plans (HNAPs) presents examples of good practice in HNAP development to assist countries in developing a comprehensive, feasible and implementable... plan. The criteria are also intended to guide countries in setting the foundation for a long-term iterative HNAP process. The proposed criteria are not prescriptive and should be adapted to dynamic country contexts, uncertain and changing climatic conditions, and new knowledge and technologies.
9 February 2021
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Access to health workers who are fit for purpose, motivated and protected is a fundamental force of health service delivery and the achievement of universal ...x">health coverage and the health and health-related Sustainable Development Goals. Data and knowledge of the distribution, skill mix and future development needs of the health workforce can mean the difference between enabling or impeding health systems performance, inclusive economic growth and global health security preparedness and response
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Small island developing states (SIDS) are a set of islands and coastal states that share similar sustainable development challenges, as a result of their size, geography and vulnerability to climate change. Thirty-nine WHO member states in four regi...ons – the African Region, the Region of the Americas, the South-East Asian Region, and the Western Pacific region – are classified as SIDS. Whilst the individual countries differ in many respects, collectively they face unique social, economic and environmental challenges.
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In 2017, $37.4 billion of development assistance was provided to low- and middleincome countries to maintain or improve health. This amount is down slightly compared to 2016, and since 2010, ...lass="attribute-to-highlight medbox">development assistance for health (DAH) has grown at an annualized rate of 1.0%. While global development assistance for health has seemingly leveled off, global health spending continues to climb, outpacing economic growth in many countries. Total health spending for 2015, the most recent year for which data are available, was estimated to be $9.7 trillion (95% uncertainty interval: 9.7–9.8)*, up 4.7% (3.9–5.6) from the prior year, and accounted for 10% of the world’s total economy. With some sources of health spending growing and other types remaining steady, and with major variations in spending from country to country, it is more important than ever to understand where resources for health come from, where they go, and how they align with health needs. This information is critical for planning and is a necessary catalyst for change as we aim to close the gap on the unfinished agenda of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and move forward toward universal health coverage (UHC) in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) era.
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The majority of developing countries will fail to achieve their targets for Universal Health Coverage (UHC)1 and the health- and poverty-related Sustainable ...x">Development Goals (SDGs) unless they take urgent steps to strengthen their health financing. Just over a decade out from the SDG deadline of 2030, 3.6 billion people do not receive the most essential health services they need, and 100 million are pushed into poverty from paying out-of-pocket for health services. The evidence is strong that progress towards UHC, core to SDG 3, will spur inclusive and sustainable economic growth, yet this will not happen unless countries achieve high-performance health financing, defined here as funding levels that are adequate and sustainable; pooling that is sufficient to spread the financial risks of ill-health; and spending that is efficient and equitable to assure desired levels of health service coverage, quality, and financial protection for all people— with resilience and sustainability.
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Marco Schäferhoff and colleagues critique funding estimates for the maternal and child health Millennium Development Goals, and make recommendations for improving the tracking of financing flows an...d estimating the costs of scaling up interventions for mothers and children.
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Four initiatives have estimated the value of aid for reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health
(RMNCH): Countdown to 2015, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), the Muskok...a Initiative, and
the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) policy marker. We aimed to compare the
estimates, trends, and methodologies of these initiatives and make recommendations for future aid tracking.
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An Overview of Current Evidence with Recommendations for Strengthening Community Health Worker Programs to Accelerate Progress in Achieving the Health-related Millennium ...ghlight medbox">Development Goals
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The Health Systems in Transition (HiT) series consists of country-based reviews that provide a detailed description of a health system and of reform and policy initiatives in progress or under ... class="attribute-to-highlight medbox">development in a specific country.
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The mission of the Women’s Health Council is to inform and influence the development of health policy to ensure the maximum ...e-to-highlight medbox">health and social gain for women in Ireland.
Its membership is representative of a wide range of expertise and interest in women’s health.
The Women’s Health Council has five functions detailed in its Statutory Instruments:
1. Advising the Minister for Health and Children on all aspects of women’s health.
2. Assisting the development of national and regional policies
and strategies designed to increase health gain and social gain for women.
3. Developing expertise on women’s health within the health services.
4. Liaising with other relevant international bodies which have similar functions as the Council.
5. Advising other Government Ministers at their request.
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Guide to national implementation of the Shanghai Declaration describes policy orientations and approaches that can unlock the transformative potential of health promotion for sustainable development.... This guide was developed to support country level implementation of the commitments and recommendations in the Shanghai Declaration.
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Ensuring mental health and well-being has become a worldwide imperative and an important target of the Sustainable Development Goals. But in all countries around the world, our response has been woe...fully insufficient, and we have made
little progress to advance mental health as a fundamental human right.
One in ten people are affected by a mental health condition, up to 200 million people have an intellectual disability and an estimated 50 million people have dementia. Many persons with mental health conditions, or psychosocial, intellectual, or cognitive disabilities lack access to quality mental health services that respond to their needs and respect their rights and dignity.
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Ensuring mental health and well-being has become a worldwide imperative and an important target
of the Sustainable Development Goals.
But in all countries around the world, our response has been w...oefully insufficient, and we have made
little progress to advance mental health as a fundamental human right.
One in ten people are affected by a mental health condition, up to 200 million people have an
intellectual disability and an estimated 50 million people have dementia. Many persons with mental
health conditions, or psychosocial, intellectual, or cognitive disabilities lack access to quality mental
health services that respond to their needs and respect their rights and dignity.
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This strategy defines the World Health Organization (WHO) vision and framework for supporting Member States to accelerate the development, implementation and monitoring of their National Action Plan... for Health Security (NAPHS) from 2022 to 2026. The National Action Plan for Health Security (NAPHS) are critical to ensure national capacities in health emergency prevention, preparedness, response and recovery are planned, built, strengthened and sustained in order to achieve national, regional and global health security and therefore keep the world safe, serve the vulnerable and promote health.
The strategy promotes, where existing, the use of existing national action plans for health security and not necessary the creation of an additional unique plan. This will avoid duplication and ensure maximum efficiency in domestic resourcing and operationalization efficiency while harnessing external buy-in to support national health priorities.
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The application of digital health technology is growing at a rapid rate in Africa, with the goals of improving the delivery of healthcare services and more effectively reaching out to remote and underserved communities. The lack of enabling guidelin...es and standards across the continent, on the other hand, makes it difficult to share data in a meaningful way across the continent.
Considering this, Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) established a task force of 24 members to provide expertise and guidance in the development of AU HIE guidelines and standards. Members of the task force were subject matter experts working in Africa and internationally on the collection, analysis, and exchange of health information. Some of these experts had been involved in previous consultations on defining Africa CDC’s health information systems strategy. A chairperson, co-chairperson, and secretary were elected to engage the task force members in different technical working groups.
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Government health expenditure is a primary means of financing health services in many countries. Research assessing the relation between government health... expenditure and development assistance for health channelled to governments (DAH-G) has produced contradictory conclusions. This research aims to credibly estimate displacement and measure if the DAH-G effect is symmetric or if increases and decreases in DAH-G have distinct effects.
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Financing Global Health 2013: Transition in an Age of Austerity, IHME’s fifth annual report on global health expenditure, depicts financing trends that underline the resilience of ...ribute-to-highlight medbox">development assistance for health. This year’s updated estimates show that despite lackluster economic growth and fiscal cutbacks in many developed countries, total assistance remained steady, reaching an all-time high of $31.3 billion in 2013. While annual increases have leveled off since 2010, continued international funding is a sign of the international development community’s enduring support for global health.
The report also shows shifts in sources of financing. As funding from many bilateral donors and development banks has declined, growth in funding from the GAVI Alliance, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, non-governmental organizations, and the UK government is counteracting these cuts. Development assistance for different health issues is tracked up to 2011, revealing that the greatest increase in funding was for maternal, newborn, and child health.
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The 2019-2023 Strategy for UNU-IIGH, developed in
2018, built on UNU-IIGH’s strategic advantage and
position vis-à-vis the UN and global health ecosystem.
The Strategy set a goal to advance evidencebased policy on key issues related to sustain...able
development and health and shifted the Institute’s
body of work from investigator-driven global health
projects to three priority-driven, policy-relevant pillars
of work, each reflecting UNU-IIGH’s unique value
position.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, the
Institute adapted and reprioritised its areas of work
while continuing to deliver on the main strategic
objectives of translating evidence to policy, generating
policy-relevant analyses on gender and health, and
strengthening capacity for local decision making
especially in the Global South.
The new strategic plan encompasses four work packages:
1. Gender Equality and Intersectionality: through this work, we will aim to improve the quality of health care through a human-centred approach, by ensuring the health system is responsive to the needs of structurally excluded individuals and communities; and by advancing a positive and enabling environment for the frontline health workforce—e.g. addressing the experience of gender-based violence.
2. Power and Accountability: through this work, we will catalyse equitable shifts in power and address key accountability deficits that prevent the equitable and effective functioning of the global health system and prevent adequate responsiveness to the needs of states and populations in the Global South.
3. Digital Health Governance: through this work, we will address the colonial legacies and power asymmetries that negatively impact robust digital health governance, identify ways to strengthen health data governance with a particular focus on SRHR and promote diversity in technology design and development.
4. Climate Justice and Determinants of Health: through this work we will leverage UNU-IIGH's position within the UN and network of UNU institutes, network experts, practitioners, policy-makers, and academics to advance evidence-based policy on the different dimensions of the climate emergency and its impact on health.
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Health Statistics in the Western Pacific Region 2023: Monitoring health for the SDGs is the third biennial report providing an overview of the progress of the World ...ht medbox">Health Organization (WHO) Western Pacific Region towards the health-related Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets. This edition also serves as a baseline assessment for the implementation of the global WHO Fourteenth General Programme of Work 2025–2028 (GPW14) within the Western Pacific Region and the for the Regional Vision “Weaving Health for Families, Communities, and Societies of the Western Pacific Region: Working Together to Improve Health, Well-Being and Save Lives”.
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