WHO AFRO Side Event:
Tackling Health Emergencies and Challenges with Evidence in the African Region

Evidence-informed  policy-decision-making  is  essential  to  accelerate  the  achievement  of  the  health-related  Sustainable  Development  Goals  (SDGs),  the  triple  billion  goals  as  outlined  in  the  WHO Thirteenth General Programme of Work 2019–2023 (GPW 13) and the WHO AFRO flagship project on  Universal  Health  Coverage  (UHC).  In  2006,  WHO  launched  the  Evidence-informed  Policy Network  (EVIPNet)  in  response  to  resolution  WHA58.34  targeted  at  increased  use  of  evidence  for health policy making.

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EVIPNet is a global network and community of people that share a vision to see, and collaboratively engage in efforts to support, a world in which high-quality, context-sensitive evidence routinely  informs  health  decision-making  processes.

 

The  collective  experience  of  the  COVID-19 pandemic  has  provided  an  unprecedented  opportunity  to  assess  the  relationship  between  evidence, policy and wider society.

To take stock of and explore the lessons learned during the pandemic, the organization of a WHO Summit is being proposed. On 25th August 2021, the Regional Committee of the WHO African Region endorsed a framework to strengthen the use of evidence, information and research in health policy making in the region.

 

This summit presents an opportunity to start the process of consultation with stakeholders on the implementation of the new framework. Thus, the WHO AFRO has also proposed to hold a 3-hour side event during the summit to interrogate the status of the links in evidence  and  policies  in  the  region. The  WHO  AFRO  side  event  at  the  Global Summit  will  bring together  researchers  and  policy-makers  from  WHO  African  Region  and  international  institutions, Member States, universities, research institutes and consultancies to identify lessons learned as well as common  challenges,  and  provide  recommendations  moving  forward  to  support  evidence-informed decision-making  in  view  of  spurring  progress  towards  the  SDGs  and  Universal  Health  Coverage (UHC) in the African Region.

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