WHO policies & strategies

The WHO Regional Office for Africa (AFRO) plays a crucial role with respect to the establishment of health policies, technical guidelines, norms and standards. However, with the rapidly escalating and sustained complexity of challenges on the continent, there is an increased level of demand for WHO's services notably for technical assistance and policy advice.

Committed to meet the needs of the governments in Africa and dedicated to facilitate the implementation of national strategic plans and strategies, AFRO acknowledges our role and responsibility in mobilizing both the resources and establishing the partnerships needed.

As a consequence WHO/AFRO has developed a Resource Mobilization Strategy and a Partnership Strategy. The strategy documents consider current trends in health financing, donor strategies and health priorities and present a comprehensive strategy for resource mobilization and partnership that WHO/AFRO has embarked upon. The objectives are to contribute to the generation of adequate resources to implement activities and establish an enabling environment for resource mobilization efforts through to 2013, as well as forge partnerships and expand existing ones that will generate more actions and outcomes to benefit the African Region and to support country priorities.

The main thrusts of the Resource Mobilization Strategy are: (1) Improve communication and information flow; (2) Institute processes, systems and tools; 3) Introduce incentives and empowerment; (4) Enhance skills and capacity; (5) Pursue donor interaction; (6) Strengthen interpersonal relations and (7) Produce results and monitor impact. The main thrusts of the Partnership Strategy are: (i) developing an enabling environment for partnering, (ii) identifying and engaging in optimal partnerships and (iii) promoting partnerships for the Regional Office.

With the two strategies in place, WHO/AFRO is now in the process of enhancing the capacity of Inter-regional Support Teams (IST) and Country Offices alike to assist governments in mobilizing and allocating resources for the health sector and develop fruitful partnerships to achieve national and internationally agreed development goals for health.