A virtual regional workshop was organized on 14 and 16 July in coordination with WHO HQ considering COVID-19 situation. The workshop was attended by at least 52 participants from 10 countries of the WHO South East Asia Region including WHO staffs from respective country offices. The participants were health officials, academic institutions and line ministries. This workshop was designed to discuss the potential methodologies available to adopt or adapt WHO global guidelines, to gather inputs and feedback on a proposed simplified framework to support regional, national or sub-national adoption of the WHO guidelines and, to provide insights into the processes required for effective dissemination and communication of guidelines. There were presentations on adopting, disseminating and communicating physical activity guidelines by India, Sri Lanka and Thailand and participants were actively interacting and discussing issues like advocacy, policy decision, motivation, funding, community engagement and monitoring and evaluation of physical activities. Participants raised practical issues such as road safety, air quality for walking and cycling.
The workshop resulted in a set of resources being developed to support national stakeholders to adopt, disseminate and communicate physical activity guidelines at national level that will be part of the final publication of the 2020 physical activity guidelines.