Developing health security capacities in countries through a costed strategic and operational planning process

WHO supports countries in their efforts to enhance health security.

The lessons learned from major events like the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ebola virus and Zika virus disease outbreaks, along with natural disasters and extreme weather events such as earthquakes and floods, have emphasized the importance of countries being well prepared to respond, and more resilient to emergencies that can impact their people, the Region or even the world.

To meet this need, countries should develop a national action plan for health security (NAPHS). This plan outlines how a country will build and maintain its health security capacities for health emergencies and accelerate the implementation of the International Health Regulations (IHR) (2005) core capacities, i.e. those required to detect, assess, notify and report events, and respond to public health risks and emergencies of national and international concern.

The NAPHS development process involves setting national health security priorities, assessed through different IHR assessment tools, bringing different sectors together, identifying partners, and allocating resources for developing health security capacities.

Strengthening health security capacities not only makes the country better prepared to manage emergencies, but also allows the health-care system to maintain routine services while responding. In turn, this helps to protect and support the country's economic, social, and political growth.

Furthermore, countries have also learned the importance of multisectoral collaboration and coordination at all phases of preparedness planning, health system response and resilience, and workforce development in health security. Effective multisectorality has been broadly recognized as one of the challenges with achieving health security.

WHO supports countries by providing technical assistance and facilitating connections between technical and financial partners to secure lasting resources and support for the development and implementation of NAPHS. This fosters collaboration and knowledge exchange among countries.

Additionally, using feedback and experience from countries, regions and partners, WHO has developed a new strategy (2022–2026) for NAPHS and consolidated technical guidance. WHO has also created online and face-to-face training sessions to help countries to practically develop and implement these capacity development plans.