The regional office organized the first six-monthly review (January-June 2024) of the regional and country-specific PIP work plans, supported by the PIP secretariat from 16-19 July conducted virtually. The review session was scheduled over 90 minutes with the participation from 3-4 countries each day. PIP focal points and relevant technical officers from WHO Headquarters, SEARO and WHO country offices in the region attended the sessions.
The main objective of the review was to assess the implementation status of HLIP III (Outputs 1 and 2) in the countries, identify key issues/challenges and discuss the way forward. Additionally, updates from the PIP Secretariat and the regional office regarding HLIP III implementation, change requests and compliance issues over the first six months of the current biennium 2024-25 were also discussed.
In SEARO, the PIP PC funds allocated for the 2024-25 biennium are distributed across eight country-level work plans and one regional work plan (including the Maldives and Sri Lanka). As of 30 June 2024, the overall implementation rate of the disbursed funds in this region for the 2024-25 biennium was 26%. It was noted that most countries in the region are making good progress in implementing the PIP PC funds according to their work plans. For countries with lower implementation rates, key issues and challenges were discussed along with suggested solutions to accelerate implementation as planned. Additionally, guidance was provided by the PIP secretariat and the regional office regarding queries related to change request and compliance issues.
The review concluded with congratulations to countries on their current implementation progress and further updates and discussions regarding the PIP annual review meeting scheduled for October 2024. PIP focal points from the WHO Country Offices (WCOs) were also requested to plan and share impact stories, web stories, box stories for the regional and global newsletters and annual reports to showcase the high-quality work carried out by countries and document best practices and lessons learned from using PIP PC funds.
