By Hassan Zaggi
The Tony Blair Institute (TBI) of Global Change is currently collaborating with the West Africa Health Organisation (WAHO) to develop and implement a 10-year strategy.
The strategy which may begin implementation early next year is targeted at addressing challenges arising from COVID-19 pandemic and other health emergencies in the region.
Speaking at a media briefing in Abuja, weekend, the TBI Team Lead at WAHO, Tyra Fom, said that TBI is out to support WAHO to strengthen its capacity to deliver on its priority- that is to improve the health of all citizens of ECOWAS.
According to her: “We are working collaboratively on various aspects but our focus at this moment is the development of the next strategy which is termed the vision 2030.
“This vision is coming at a very crucial moment giving the response to the COVID-19 pandemic and some of the emerging health issues in the region.
“This strategy will support WAHO to define its priority and find a way that it will support the region to improve the health of the region. It will be done collaborative with WAHO and other key partners and stakeholders in the region.”
The TBI Team Lead further explained that: “The strategy is going to be a vision for the next ten years that is why we are calling it Vision 20-30.
“This will be the longest strategy the WAHO will have and we saw an opportunity to have a long vision so that we focus for the next ten years so that we can be able to address the issues.
“The main purpose of the vision is to look at the WAHO mandate and the role it will play in supplementing the effort of countries within the region and national public health institutions and to further facilitate harmonization across border and facilitate public health response in general.
“Our role is to work hand in hand with our colleagues in WAHO and to ensure adequate engagement with all the stakeholders, representatives of member states and partners as well.”
Speaking, the Senior Special Adviser to the Director General of WAHO, Nanlop Ogbureke, revealed that the strategy is going to be the longest that WAHO has ever had, noting that prior to now, all the strategies have been between 4-5 years in terms of the duration.
“However, this is going to be in detail with a clear road map articulating beyond activities that WAHO has been implementing.
“It is going to look at the operational side of WAHO and how it is going to resource WAHO to implement the strategy that has been developed.
“Most of the strategies we have done have been structured around the programme focused areas and now we are looking at it much more robustly and another thing to mention is that we are looking at it widely because if you recall the Sustainable Development Goals and a lot of commitment have been made globally and regional and commitment by member states.”
