The WHO Regional Office for Europe has launched the E4As Guide, helping to promote engagement with health and sustainable development among key stakeholders. E4As stands for: engage to assess, align, accelerate and account – a compilation of methods, diagnostic tools, guidance documents, processes and mechanisms to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The guide was developed in response to calls from Member States for a resource kit to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Health at the centre of sustainable development
The SDGs need to be achieved in an integrated way, with the 2030 Agenda calling on decision-makers to transform and change the way they make and deliver policies that impact citizens. For health stakeholders and policy-makers, this guide provides selected approaches, information, tools and case studies to support the required transformation in the health sector.
For example, if a country has committed to present a Voluntary National Review at the High-level Political Forum – the formal follow-up and review mechanism of the 2030 Agenda – the E4As Guide offers health stakeholders examples of ways to engage, assess progress, and identify gaps.
It also offers information on policy tools and mechanisms to use the lessons learned from the review to promote alignment, coherence, transparency and accountability for achieving health-related SDGs. The E4As Guide can also be used when creating development and health strategies or devising recovery plans, such as those necessary as societies recover from COVID-19, among other opportunities for action.
Collaboration across stakeholders
The guide itself was developed in collaboration with national authorities, civil society and academia, and presents case studies from countries and institutions across the Region.
Targeted at policy-makers, public health institutions, academia, civil society, development partners and funding agencies, the guide also includes useful information for anyone with an interest in promoting and protecting health and well-being.
European Programme of Work
Ensuring that more people receive universal health coverage and benefit from better health and well-being is central to the European Programme of Work, 2020–2025 – “United Action for Better Health in Europe”. Achieving impact in countries is a vital part of this, and providing stakeholders with the necessary guidance on the SDGs and their impact on broader health goals forms an important part of this vision.