The Seventy-sixth World Health Assembly adopted a resolution to extend the WHO Global Action Plan on promoting the health of refugees and migrants until 2030, which requests governments, stakeholders, and networks, in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) to continue to improve the health of refugees and migrants worldwide.
One in eight people today is either a migrant or is forcibly displaced. Refugees and migrants are not inherently less healthy than populations in the host country. Still, millions in vulnerable situations face poorer health outcomes than their host communities, especially where living and working conditions are sub-standard. The resolution highlights how the global action plan is instrumental in prioritizing efforts to improve global health equity by addressing the physical and mental health and well-being of refugees and migrants worldwide and meeting the Sustainable Development Goals for these populations as well as the objectives of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration and the Global Compact on Refugees.
“Health does not begin or end at a country’s border,” notes Dr Santino Severoni, Director of the WHO Health and Migration Programme. “With this extension, and with the support of WHO, countries have seven years ahead to reorient their health systems to embrace inclusive policies, plans, and interventions in the long term, beyond the acute phase of migration and displacement. The WHO Health and Migration Programme will continue to help Member States better understand how migration and displacement affect the health of people on the move and guide them to tailor their strategies accordingly.”
The resolution, put forward by the Governments of Mexico and Portugal, together with other co-sponsors (1), urges Member States to continue to address the health needs of refugees and migrants, integrate refugee and migrant health in global, regional, and national initiatives, and identify and share challenges, lessons learned, and best practices related to implementing the global action plan.
The resolution requests WHO to continue to provide technical assistance, develop guidelines and promote knowledge sharing and collaboration and coordination within and among Member States, stimulate knowledge production through surveillance and research, and support efforts to translate the WHO global action plan into concrete capacity-building actions. The resolution further requests WHO to submit a progress report to the World Health Assembly in 2025, 2027, and 2029 on implementing this resolution and the WHO global action plan.
The resolution comes ahead of the Third Global Consultation on the Health of Refugees and Migrants taking place in June 2023 in Rabat in a drive to assess progress, build further political commitment on refugee and migrant health, guide the continuous implementation of WHO GAP, and inform future policy deliberations, including the upcoming 2023 General Assembly High-Level Meeting (HLM) on Universal Health Coverage (UHC).
In the past four years since the adoption of the WHO Global Action Plan, the world has seen impressive progress in ensuring positive health outcomes for the one billion people on the move. WHO established the Health and Migration Programme, which led high-level advocacy efforts, developed a wide range of norms- and standard-setting technical products, set up a research agenda exercise to define global research priorities in health and migration, initiated a process to establish a Global Data Initiative on Refugee and Migrant Health and trained policymakers, health sector managers, and service providers in the field of health and migration. By extending the global action plan until 2030, Member States and WHO have renewed their firm commitment to work together to close existing gaps in healthcare access so that all people, including refugees and migrants, have equitable access to quality health services anywhere, at any time, without financial hardship and regardless of their migratory status.
Notes
1. Argentina, Bangladesh, Botswana, Brazil, Cabo Verde, Canada, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, France, Germany, Guatemala, Iraq, Ireland, Latvia, Luxembourg, Peru, Philippines, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, United States of America, Uruguay