This area of work aims to ensure that all countries of the Region have capabilities for all hazards health emergency and disaster risk management, including the core capacities needed to fulfill their responsibilities under the IHR 2005. The goal is to ensure that each Member State builds its own standing capacity to prevent, prepare for, respond to and recover from humanitarian emergencies and large outbreaks.
Major Action Lines
Institutionalization of a national health emergency management.
Development and implementation of health multihazard preparedness and response plan.
Identification and training of multidisciplinary health response teams.
Regional IHR secretariat activities.
IHR Core Capacity Building, Assessment, Monitoring and Evaluation.
Development of guidelines, learning materials and standard operating procedures.
Implementation of the Emergency Medical Teams initiative.
Key Programs
Mandates & Strategic Documents
Health Sector Multi-Hazard Response Framework
The main aim of the Health Sector Multi-Hazard Response Framework (MRF) is to improve the capacity of countries to manage their response to emergencies and disasters in a more efficient and timely manner. The MRF facilitates an operational model that makes it possible to identify response activities, taking into account all existing hazards and to carry out those activities within a national framework based on the organization of the health sector. The MRF is designed mainly for health sector authorities and managers responsible for emergency and disaster risk management, guiding them in the process of updating or developing response planning.
Preparedness Index for Health Emergencies and Disasters
The Preparedness Index for Health Emergencies and Disasters is a voluntary tool to be used by health sector authorities to measure progress in emergency and disaster preparedness with a multi-hazard approach and in line with the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Strategic Framework for Emergency Preparedness. The objective of the Preparedness Index for health Emergencies and Disasters is to estimate the national or sub-national health preparedness capacity to deal with natural, anthropic and health events (epidemics) that generate emergencies and disasters, as well as the capacity of the health sector to recover early from the effects of these events.