Action plan: National workforce capacity to implement the essential public health functions including a focus on emergency preparedness and response

In May 2022, WHO and partners published the National workforce capacity to implement the essential public health functions including a focus on emergency preparedness and response: roadmap for aligning WHO and partner contributions1 (hereafter “Roadmap”), setting out a 5-year vision to strengthen capacity across all WHO Member States for a multidisciplinary workforce to undertake the essential public health functions (EPHFs), including emergency preparedness and response (EPR).

The Roadmap evolved from, and built upon, the consensus in the Rome Declaration of 2021, G20 Italia Declaration of the G20 Health Ministers and a series of World Health Assembly resolutions. Many of the world’s leading public health institutions, schools and associations were engaged in its development2 , outlining a unique opportunity for Member States, regional and global bodies to adopt a coherent approach to national workforce development and management.

The Roadmap was oriented towards three interlinked priority areas: defining the EPHFs and their subfunctions, strengthening competency-based education of the public health workforce, and mapping and measurement of the public health workforce.

This Action Plan (2022–2024) focuses on the immediate activities and deliverables anticipated in the first 2-year period of the Roadmap, from July 2022 to June 2024, to meet the following targets:

• By the end of June 2023, all tools and guidance are available for country contextualization and endorsed by the participating organizations.
• By the end of June 2024, at least 100 countries have benchmarked themselves on the three action areas and developed action plans for implementation.