Strategy and action plan on health emergency preparedness, response and resilience in the WHO European Region (Preparedness 2.0)
Preparedness 2.0 is WHO/Europe’s new regional strategy and action plan to strengthen health emergency preparedness, response and resilience in the WHO European Region for 2024–2029.
The strategic aim of Preparedness 2.0 is to strengthen health emergency preparedness, response and resilience in the Region and to support Member States to address emerging needs and achieve alignment with ongoing developments in the global health security architecture. Through this renewed focus, WHO and our partners are ready to support the implementation of national health security strategies and actions plans to strengthen context-specific capacities to be better prepared and ensure resilient health systems for future public health threats and emergencies.
Preparedness 2.0 is a living document, which will be regularly updated throughout its 5-year implementation period, to remain fit for purpose – relying on a culture of continuous learning and improvement.
In addition to the Strategy and Action Plan, an Implementation Support Guide provides Member States with a compilation of existing guidance and tools to operationalize Preparedness 2.0. This go-to tool was designed to be read alongside the Strategy and Action Plan and aims to support technical teams to navigate best practice in the development and strengthening of efforts for enhanced preparedness, response, resilience and recovery related to health and other all-hazard emergencies. This guide will also be updated regularly throughout the Preparedness 2.0 implementation period, as new guidance and tools become available.
Priority areas for Preparedness 2.0
Preparedness 2.0 supports countries in enhancing capacities, enabling agile health systems to manage the “dual track” – entailing the maintenance of essential health services while effectively managing emergency response operations. Some of the other identified core elements of Preparedness 2.0 are described below.
- Governance and leadership for health emergencies: ensuring that effective multisector coordination, enabling operational architecture, evidence-based decision-making, effective budgeting and timely resource allocation, clear communication, and accountability frameworks are in place for preparing for and responding to health emergencies.
- Collaborative surveillance: strengthening and integrating event-based collaborative surveillance systems into routine respiratory and all-hazards systems and recognizing the interconnectedness between humans, animals, ecosystems and the social environment; ensuring a range of operational public health surveillance functions, enhanced data and pathogen sharing, increasing laboratory capacity, and increasing country risk assessment ability.
- Community resilience and protection: establishing equitable community-centred emergency health systems; continuing to support countries in their endeavour to build and strengthen their multihazard risk communication, community engagement and infodemic management capacity; paving the way for the right structures, systems and skills to be established and implemented.
- Safe and scalable care: supporting the building of resilient and robust health systems that have the resources and capacity to reorganize and deploy existing resources in a timely manner in response to increased demands imposed by different types of hazards and emergencies with agility and flexibility, while maintaining essential routine health services, as well as protecting and supporting health workers and patients.
- Access to countermeasures: ensuring that preparedness efforts centre on fast-tracked research and development, with pre-negotiated benefit-sharing agreements and appropriate financing and regulatory instruments, scalable manufacturing platforms and technology transfer agreements, and emergency supply chains to enable equitable access.
- Emergency coordination: ensuring a multisectoral approach including capacity-building and planning through national action plans, such as the National Action Plan for Health Security, and building a strong European health emergency corps.
