Royal Tropical Institute(KIT) developed at the request of the World Health Organisation a 2,5 day module on monitoring and evaluation for the International Health Regulations (IHR) for IHR National Focal Points. The training was piloted in Bratislava, December 2016 and will be rolled out over all WHO regions in 2017.

Detecting, assessing, reporting and responding

The international Health Regulations (2005) are an important tool to detect, assess, report and respond to public health emergencies of international concern (PHEIC). Recent outbreaks of Ebola and Zika virus underline the need for international collaboration but also the need for strong national health systems and intersectoral collaboration in country. The core capacities that are defined for the IHR serve to set indicators to assess whether countries are indeed prepared to detect, assess and report PHEIC. Monitoring of these core capacities is therefore important both as a method for self-assessment on country level, as well as for the WHO to identify which countries may require further development of one or more core competencies.

Recent evaluations have shown that the in country capacity to perform monitoring and evaluation on core-competencies for countries is often lacking resulting in information that does not give an accurate view of reality. Also the M&E framework for the IHR was revised in 2016.

WHO requested for a 2-3 day training to address the training needs of national IHR focal points, who are responsible for the M&E of the IHR.

Results

The focal points consists of representatives of various sectors like border control, emergency preparedness, nuclear agencies, animal health and the health sector. They took one module focusing on M&E concepts and one module focusing on M&E for the IHR. At the end of the course the participants were be able to:

• Describe the fundamental concepts that underpin effective monitoring and evaluation of health programs
• Demonstrate the role of M&E as a key element to develop and optimise processes in public health practice
• Recall and discuss the main features and elements of the revised IHR Monitoring Framework
• Propose country specific strategies to implement the revised IHR Monitoring Framework, foreseeing potential challenges and how address them

The training materials consisted of interactive presentations, a case study, a role play and interactive group work.

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