Finland’s strategic leadership in several stakeholder groups makes it an important player in the global health security landscape. Since the inception of WHO’s Strategic Partnership for International Health Regulations (2005) (IHRs) and Health Security (SPH) in 2015, Finland has contributed to a “One Health” approach among Member States, partners and donors for the acceleration of strengthening country capacity to detect, prevent and respond to public health emergencies. Finland supports WHO’s Strategic Parntership for IHR, which facilitates exchange on health security activities and investments. To date, the Partnership has monitored and tracked more than 1900 activities and investments across the globe. With more than 2500 subscribers, 900 technical experts, the portal is now accessed daily by 180 countries.

Finland is committed to supporting the cooperation between WHO and other partners for health security capacity building, including through a regional partnerships forum that was organized by the WHO Regional Office for Africa from 26 to 28 March 2019 in Cabo Verde.

Health security in action: Uganda

Finland along with Australia co-chairs the  JEE Alliance for Health Security Cooperation (AHSC), a platform for facilitating multisectoral collaboration on health security capacity building to support the International Health Regulations. As of June 2019, nearly 100 Joint External Evaluations (JEEs) have been conducted in six regions to assess country capacity to prevent, detect and rapidly respond to public health risks.

Finnish funding has helped WHO convene key stakeholders in Uganda including from health, wildlife, defense, foreign affairs and more to participate in a JEE. Afterward, Uganda was able to establish priority cross-cutting actions such as

• establishing and strengthening mechanisms to prevent and respond to zoonotic disease and counter anti-microbial resistance;
• strengthening sustainable funding across all technical areas; and
• elaborating and costing a national action plan using the JEE report as a basis for priorities.

Finland’s engagement in protecting the right to health for women, children and adolescents has made it an innovator in gender equity, health and human rights. Since 2016, former President of Finland Tarja Halonen has co-chaired the High-Level Working Group on the Health and Human Rights of Women, Children and Adolescents, which was convened to identify human rights-related recommendations to achieve the targets in the Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health (2016-2030). This group has worked across UN agencies to pilot the “Leaving No One Behind” guidelines, which will assist Member States in ensuring gender-responsive and rights-based policies and programmes for health equity are integrated across WHO.

In 2017, funding from Finland supported the publication of Leading the realization of human rights to health and through health, a report from the High-Level Working Group which advocated for a rights-based approach to health and provided recommendations for how governments can achieve more equitable, accessible and accountable health systems. WHO acted on these recommendations signing the Framework for Cooperation, an agreement that spells out how WHO and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) can collaborate for health equity.

As of July 2019, Finland hosted six collaborating centres which routinely contribute their scientific expertise to WHO.  Among them are institutions and universities that share knowledge on a wide range of topics, including mental health, environmental health, nursing and alcohol and substance abuse.

The WHO Collaborating Centre for Mental Health Promotion, Prevention and Policy at the National Institute for Health and Welfare contributes to mental health development in the European Region by assisting WHO in the development of evidence-based tools and guidance for mental health promotion and prevention of mental disorders. The center also contributes to capacity building in the field of suicide prevention. 

The WHO Collaborating Centre in Global Change, Environment and Public Health at the University of Oulu supports the WHO Regional Office for Europe in implementing the Ostrava Declaration on strengthening capacity and resilience to climate change-related health risks and supporting measures to mitigate climate change in the European countries, and in Nordic countries in particular.  The centre also contributes to the provision of research-based information to the WHO European Centre for Environment and Health with a special reference to weather-related phenomena. This includes provision of case studies, capacity, building and dissemination of information on the relevant topics.

Finland is a champion of healthcare for the world’s most vulnerable populations, which includes prisoners. The Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs and Health has supported several WHO projects to research and improve health in the criminal justice system. Finland recently renewed its contribution to the WHO/Europe programme on health in prisons by contributing €100,000 for programme activities in the 2018-2019 biennium and committing to host a meeting for the WHO/EURO Prison Health Research and Engagement Network (WEPHREN) in Helsinki in 2019.

Key actions include:

• establishing a network of governmental representatives on prison health;
• creating WEPHREN;
• collecting data on public health in European prisons;  
• creating the Health in Prisons European Database (HIPED); and
• providing prison health-related resources through a web-based platform, Partnership for Health in the Criminal Justice System.

Prison health plays an important role in a country’s overall public health since prison populations contain a high prevalence of people with serious and often life-threatening conditions. Many prisoners carry these conditions back when they re-enter their communities, adding to the burden of disease. Prison health is also an important social justice issue that contributes to reducing health inequalities.

Finland supports WHO’s Healthy Cities objectives through the Terve Kunta-verkosto (Finnish Healthy Cities Network). For 30 years the WHO European Healthy Cities Network has served as a global movement to put health high on the social, economic and political agenda of city governments. Terve Kunta-verkosto has been achieving this by supporting its network members in introducing new evaluations at seminars and piloting an e-learning course on data-driven decision-making.

The WHO European Healthy Cities Network Summit of Mayors adopted the Almaty Acclamation of Mayors: Cities at the Frontline of Health and Well-Being for All in October 2018 to reaffirm the Network’s commitment to the definition of health in the WHO constitution and the values and principles of a primary healthcare approach as enshrined in the Alma Ata Declaration (1978). Activities like these spread awareness about WHO’s vision for improving urban health for all.