WHO and SPC sign new Memorandum of Understanding [1]
Wednesday, October 29, 2008 - 05:32. Updated on Wednesday, July 29, 2015 - 14:25.
The World Health Organization WHO and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community SPC have signed a new four-year Memorandum of Understanding MoU designed to improve collaboration between the two organizations and to seek innovative solutions to assist Pacific Island countries and territories to achieve better health outcomes.
"Our new philosophy is 'two organizations, one team and 22 beneficiary island countries and territories'," said Dr Chen Ken, WHO's representative in the South Pacific. "We want to combine the strengths of each organization to create a synergy that will ultimately lead to a higher level of health benefits for the people of the Pacific Island region."
SPC and WHO's Western Pacific Regional Office (WPRO) are the principal regional and international organizations with health mandates in Pacific Island countries and territories. Between them, the two organizations cover a range of sectors, many of which influence factors beyond the health sector that help determine a population's health, such as cultural, social and environmental factors.
SPC's Director-General, Dr Jimmie Rodgers, said: "The MoU will strengthen the existing partnership and cooperation between WPRO and SPC, providing new opportunities and new ways of working together. Our collaboration is based on a number of principles, with the key being our joint commitment that 'all work undertaken by SPC and WPRO will be guided by the needs and priorities of Pacific Island countries and territories'. We also agree that to increase our effectiveness and make the best use of resources, we need to harmonise our processes, such as development of joint team approaches, workplans and country visits, as well as harmonise data collection and dissemination, and monitoring and evaluation."
The partnership will also cover policy analysis and advice, technical support, research, and regional and subregional meetings.
The MoU acknowledges that the two organizations have differing but complementary mandates, with WHO having a global role in coordinating and directing action on international health, including in the Pacific region, while SPC's focus is on Pacific regional and national issues. But, in the words of the MoU, this also means that the two organizations will 'bring more than their own resources to the partnership', which will further strengthen the impact of combining their forces.
Implementation of the MoU will be monitored by an Executive Oversight Group comprising the SPC Director-General or his nominee and the WHO representative in the South Pacific. There will also be formal annual consultations to review progress and regular meetings at both management and technical levels. SPC, 27/10/08.