Global Health and Foreign Policy : Strengthening the Management of International Health Crises

A/RES/70/183View PDF

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 125 Global health and foreign policy, published in 2016.

What subjects does this mandate have?

8 subjects

Disease Control Disease Prevention Health Personnel Health Policy Health Services International Cooperation International Health Regulations Partnership

What’s in this document?

23 operative paragraphs

Takes note with appreciation of the note by the Secretary-General transmitting the report of the Director General of the World Health Organization on global health and foreign policy;¹⁰

¹⁰A/69/405.

Urges Member States, in accordance with their obligations under relevant provisions of international human rights law, including the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, to promote equal access to health services, and calls for the development and attainment by Member States of resilient and sustainable health systems capable of responding effectively to outbreaks and emergencies and of implementing an effective response to the broader dimensions of outbreaks and emergencies that include food security and access to basic health services;

Calls upon partnerships for global health to support Member States in carrying out their primary responsibilities to accelerate the transition towards universal health coverage, which implies that all people have equal access, without discrimination of any kind, to nationally determined sets of quality promotive, preventive, curative, rehabilitative and palliative basic health services needed and essential, safe, affordable, effective and quality medicines, especially through the promotion of primary health care, while ensuring that the use of these services does not expose the users to financial hardship, with a specific emphasis on the poor, vulnerable and marginalized segments of the population;

Urges Member States, in cooperation, as appropriate, with relevant international organizations, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and other relevant non-State actors, including Médecins sans frontières, to develop effective preventive measures to enhance and promote the safety and protection of medical and health personnel, as well as respect for their respective professional codes of ethics and scope of practice;

Calls upon Member States to strengthen support for the health workforce to enable local and regional surge capacity, as the most important basis for emergency and outbreak response, which includes ensuring the availability of adequate care and treatment facilities, essential supplies and protective equipment and strengthening national and regional capacities for disease detection and surveillance, including the provision of support for developing countries to build capacity in line with the principles of the World Health Organization Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel;¹¹

¹¹World Health Organization, document WHA63/2010/REC/1, annex 5.

Encourages Member States to secure sustainable financing for health research and development on emerging diseases and neglected tropical diseases, including Ebola virus disease, and to enhance access to health products and medical devices to address the health needs of developing countries;

Reiterates the call upon Member States to continue to collaborate, as appropriate, on models and approaches that support the delinkage of the cost of new research and development from the prices of medicines, vaccines and diagnostics for Ebola virus disease and other emerging and neglected tropical diseases, so as to ensure their sustained accessibility, affordability and availability and to ensure access to treatment for all those in need;¹²

¹²See World Health Organization, document EBSS/3/2015/REC/1.

Commends the regional efforts to implement action plans to ensure the containment of diseases, and welcomes the current process for the establishment of an African centre for disease control and prevention, as well as the similar initiatives around the world in line with the International Health Regulations (2005);6

Invites the World Health Organization to provide technical support to Member States, upon request, in order to strengthen their capacity to deal with public health emergencies and implement the International Health Regulations (2005), with a particular focus on developing countries, in order to build resilient health systems and strengthen surveillance and preparedness measures, particularly with regard to infectious diseases;

Encourages the World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the World Organization for Animal Health to further develop their collaborative efforts and work towards a “One Health” approach at the national, regional and global levels;

Calls upon the World Health Organization, the international humanitarian system, global cluster leads and other relevant United Nations entities and non-governmental organizations to strengthen their cooperation and coordination so as to assist Member States, upon request, in effectively responding to situations in which an outbreak escalates into a humanitarian crisis;

Calls upon Member States to seek synergies and collaboration with the World Health Organization and other relevant actors in the field of health when supporting implementation of the International Health Regulations (2005) and developing overall health systems, including disease surveillance systems, health financing, procurement and the supply chain, as well as the health workforce at the national, regional and global levels;

Urges the international community to take the measures required to act quickly and effectively in global health crises and in all outbreaks and emergencies with health consequences, through a comprehensive and well-coordinated all-hazards approach;

Urges Member States to strengthen country and regional capacity in disaster risk reduction, where needed, in accordance with the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030, adopted by Member States at the Third United Nations World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction, held in Sendai, Japan, from 14 to 18 March 2015;¹³

¹³Resolution 69/283, annex II.

Calls upon Member States, in accordance with the International Health Regulations (2005), to strengthen disease surveillance capacity and data and information flows between the local and national levels and with the World Health Organization at the country, regional and global levels to ensure early reporting and detection of outbreaks of disease and disasters, and commends in this regard international efforts to assist countries to implement the Regulations, and acknowledges the critical role that the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network can play for rapid identification and confirmation of and response to outbreaks of international importance, under the leadership of the World Health Organization;

Urges Member States to fulfil their commitment to fully implement the International Health Regulations (2005), utilizing, in this respect, North-South, South-South, triangular and bilateral cooperation as well as the exchange of best practices, and to monitor national compliance;

Welcomes the decisions made by the Executive Board of the World Health Organization at its special session on the Ebola emergency12 and by the sixty-eighth World Health Assembly to strengthen the global response to health emergencies,¹⁴ and calls upon all Member States to actively support their implementation;

¹⁴See World Health Organization, document WHA68/2015/REC/1.

Calls upon Member States, if in a position to do so, to support the initiative of the World Bank to develop a pandemic emergency financing facility towards ensuring that the world has the financial resources to quickly deploy trained health workers, equipment, medicines and whatever else is required to respond to health emergencies, along with the contingency fund of the World Health Organization;

Decides to hold a high-level meeting in 2016 on antimicrobial resistance, and requests the Secretary-General, in collaboration with the Director General of the World Health Organization, and in consultation with Member States, as appropriate, to determine options and modalities for the conduct of such a meeting, including potential deliverables;

Encourages Member States to participate actively in the dissemination, verification and validation of surveillance data and information concerning public health emergencies and, in close collaboration with the World Health Organization, to exchange information and experience in a timely and open manner on epidemics and the prevention and control of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases that pose a risk to global public health;

Calls upon the international community and Member States to give due consideration to the importance of the management of international health crises, bearing in mind the social, economic, security and environmental implications of the policy choices and actions of Member States at all levels in their implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,¹⁵ building upon the achievements of the Millennium Development Goals and seeking to address their unfinished business;

¹⁵Resolution 70/1.

Requests the Secretary-General, as appropriate, in consultation with Member States, relevant international organizations and other relevant actors, to explore steps to meet the global shortfall of trained health workers, including the possibility of establishing a high-level commission on future health employment and economic growth;

Also requests the Secretary-General, in close collaboration with Member States, the Director General of the World Health Organization and the United Nations system, to submit a report on the lessons learned in the public health emergency response to and management of previous international crises with health consequences, and to transmit in 2016 and 2017 reports provided by the World Health Organization on the state of health security, taking into account deliberation by the World Health Assembly on the matter, and acknowledging that the ongoing necessity of such reports beyond 2017 can be re-evaluated.

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

What subjects does this mandate have?

What’s in this document?

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