Report of meeting of responsible officers/technical counterparts of WHO collaborating centres in the African Region.
Held 4 June 2015, Sub-Committee 2B room, AFRO, Brazzaville, Congo.
- Opening, objectives and expected outcomes of meeting:
The meeting was opened by Dr Ossy M.J. Kasilo on behalf of Dr Delanyo Dovlo, HSS/AFRO Director. In her welcome remarks, Dr Kasilo defined the WHO collaborating centres (WCCs) and explained the difference with the WHO centres of excellence. She highlighted the fact that WHO collaborating centres are not only very few in the AFR Region but also grossly underutilized by the Organization. Hence the new AFRO management intends to strengthen the collaboration with the WCCs as well as designate additional centres, where necessary, to focus on important public health issues in the Region. She concluded by stating that the major aim of convening the meeting was to share experiences, reflect on how best AFRO could optimize the use of existing WHO collaborating centres and to review the AFRO main strategic priorities with a view to identifying aspects not covered by existing WCC. Dr Kirigia thanked Dr Kasilo for her opening remarks and invited the participants to introduce themselves; subsequently, the agenda was adopted. Dr Kirigia outlined the objectives of the meeting as follows: (1) update the participants on the existing WCCs; (2) review AFRO main strategic priorities and identify aspects not covered by existing WCCs; (3) review issues raised during the last assessment of the WCCs in the African Region; and (4) diagnose what is working and what is not and recommend the way forward for optimizing the use of WCCs.He ended by spelling out the expected outcomes of the meeting, namely: (1) increased awareness of the available WCCs and their areas of focus; (2) increased awareness of the WCC management modules in iLearning; (3) identification of AFRO strategic priorities that require the designation of a WCC; and (4) recommendations on how to better motivate, engage and evaluate WCCs; and use them to support WHO programmatic work.
- Overview of WHO collaborating centres
Dr Martin Ota presented an overview of the WCCs. He also thanked the participants for attending. His presentation focused on the number and distribution of WCCs globally and in the African Region, the strategic rationale for designating WCCs, the designation process, terms of reference, and the outputs of the WCCs. He pointed out that the African Region has only 2.8% of the total global WCCs, with about 48% of them in South Africa. He also noted that about 50% of the responsible officers of the WCCs in the Region are based in Geneva. He stressed the need for WHO to have WCCs, echoing part of Dr Margaret Chan’s speech at the Sixty-fourth World Health Assembly, on 16 May 2011: “In everything we do, WHO relies on the expertise of hundreds of formal WHO collaborating centres, in your countries, and thousands of the best brains in science, medicine, and public health, in your countries. They give us their time freely and it is my strong impression that they do so with pride." Dr Ota concluded that it was important for staff to be aware of these issues to enable effective collaboration.
Ms Sheree Bailey presented the iLearning modules available on the Intranet with different courses related to the use of the WCC database for performing different assignments such as designation, redesignation, etc. A demonstration of the system of registration of WCCs was conducted and participants were encouraged to avail themselves of these facilities to improve their use and performance.
- AFRO main strategic priorities
Dr Kirigia made another presentation on AFRO main strategic directions, priorities and gaps. His presentation highlighted WHO’s mission, values and core functions. He showed the new AFRO’s organizational structure, regional health challenges and criticisms made against the Organization in the Region. The vision of the Regional Director and strategic priorities for 2015-2020 were shared with participants. A mapping of strategic priorities and existing WHO CCs and gaps were shown. He concluded the presentation with a question: “what are we to do about the gaps identified?”
- Previous assessments of WCCs
Dr Derege Kebede presented the results of the two global assessments of the WCCs conducted in 1998 and 2007/2008. They focused on therelevance, alignment, effectiveness and management of the WCCs. They also identified the lack of evaluation and of WHO resources (staff and funds) in support of the WCCs. Other issues arising from the assessment related to the absence of WCCs in programme managers’ work plans, and the four-year designation period not coinciding with biennial WHO planning cycles.
- Experiences of responsible officers and technical counterparts of the WCCs
Responsible officers and technical counterparts briefly presented the activities in their respective centres with emphasis on what had worked and what had not. The presentations were made by Ms Jennifer Nyoni, Dr Leopold Ouedraogo, Mr Abayneh Desta, Dr Magaran Bagayoko, Dr Ezra Ouma, Dr Benoit Varenne, and Dr Sebastiana Nkoma da Gama. Dr Ali Ahmed sent his presentation.
Ms Nyoni shared some points and informed participants that she was responsible for five collaborating centres based in Botswana, South Africa and Malawi. Three of them were on nursing, one on inter-profession education and one on human resources. Some of the challenges faced are the underutilization WCCs and lack of publicity and funding.
Mr Desta presented three WCCs in essential medicine based in Algeria, Ghana and South Africa. He shared the terms of reference of one of them. He noted that the challenges raised by Mrs Nyoni were familiar but that there was the additional problem of language barrier. For instance, tools used for the designation of WCCs are only in English.
Dr Bagayoko presented the environmental health area of work and said that the meeting which was timely had enlightened him considerably. He added that his programme covers four collaborating centres based in Benin, South Africa and Burkina Faso. He pointed out that the barriers and enhancers of collaboration were similar to what others had described. He concluded that areas like air pollution and climate change were so farnot covered.
Dr Ezra Ouma said that the tobacco programme has only one WCC in Burkina Faso serving as a testing laboratory for the Region. He raised the same challenges as the others, namely lack of publicity for the WCC and lack of funding.
Dr Varenne congratulated the RPL team for the initiative to hold this meeting with all regional officers managing WCCs. He said that at global level there are 15 WCCs related to oral health. But only one exists in Africa (South Africa). He raised the same challenges and proposed that RPL organize a meeting with all WCCs in the Region focusing on capacity building to improve performance and communication. Another meeting of responsible offices should be organized to build on the awareness created and strengthen the capacity to improve collaborative work with the WCCs. He concluded that it was important to have WCCs in areas like NCD and e-Health.
Dr Nkomo da Gama started with the lack of funds in the area of mental health. She informed participants that there were two WCCs in her area (Nigeria and South Africa). But since 2015 they had stopped being WCCs. In the area of violence and injuries, there were also two WCCs (Uganda and South Africa) but they were not re-designated. The only one remaining is on substance abuse in Nigeria. She raised the same challenges as previous speakers.
Following the rich discussions the following issues were the identified:
5.1 What works:
(1) Having close and regular contact with heads of WCC institutions; (2) having clear and specific terms of reference; (3) providing some catalytic funding to WCCs; (4) having good transition plans for responsible officers leaving or retiring; and (5) networking with other centres on the same subject.
5.2 Challenges to effective collaboration with the WCCs:
(1) WHO technical staff not including WCCs in their planning; (2) inadequate budgeting in technical officers’ work plans resulting in absence of catalytic funding for WCCs; (3) limited interactions with WCCs (visits, email, phone calls); (4) poor awareness of WCCs among staff and in countries; (5) poor transition plans for exiting responsible officers; (6) language barriers given that the WCC database is only in English; (7) weak capacity/knowledge of the WCC database, policies and processes involved; (8) no formal guide to assess performance of WCCs; and (9) limited number and scope of current WCCs.
- Recommendations
Finally, the participants examined the challenges and made recommendations for immediate, short term and medium term implementation as follows.
•6.1 Immediate (within 6 months)
- Make a case for resources for initial mapping of institutions
- Feedback on performance of existing WCCs
- Responsible officers andfocal points in WCOs to increase interactions with WCCs
- Responsible clusters to review ToRs and amend as necessary
- Strategically plan, budget and include indicators for AFRO’s activities in WCCs
- Make a case for having a full-time staff to manage WCCs in the AFR
- Improve visibility of WCCs within WHO through flyers, seminars, posters, a memo from DPM to all clusters on WCCs and these recommendations.
•6.2 Short term ( Within 12 months)
- Cluster to map potential WCCs in line with gaps/needs identified using the template provided
- Clusters to identify potential WCCs that match the gaps
- Clusters to initiate collaborative work with relevant institutions
- Responsible Clusters to re-assess the need for AFRO-based Responsible Officer
- Strengthen regional responsible officers’ capacity to manage WCCs (include iLearning)
•6.3 Medium term (within 24 months)
- Convene biennial meeting of WCCs (cost-sharing across clusters)
- Designate eligible WCCs as identified by clusters
- WCCs in AFR to participate in thematic global networks
Annex 1: Participants
- Dr Ossy M.J Kasilo, HTC and HSSai
- Dr Sebastiana Nkomo Da Gama, NCDs/MVI
- Dr Martin Ota, IRO/RPL/HSS
- Dr Joses M. Kirigia, RPL/HSS
- Dr Derege Kebe, AHO/HSS
- Dr Magaran M. Bagayoko, PHE
- Dr Léopold Ouedraogo, FRH
- Dr Benoit Varenne, NCD
- Dr Ahmed E. O. Ouma, NCD
- Mrs Sheree Bailey, SDL
- Mrs Jennifer Nyoni, HRM/HSS
- Mr Abayneh Desta, EDP/HSS
- Mr Pascal Mouhouelo, LIB/RPL/HSS
Apologies:
Dr Jean Baptiste Nikiema
Absent:
Dr Benido Impouma
Dr Davison Munodawafa
Annex 2: Agenda
Session 109:00 – 09:30 / Welcoming and opening remarks and introduction of participants / HSS
Objectives and expected outcomes / Dr Joses Kirigia
Session 2
09:30 – 10:00 / Overview of WCCs
Discussions / Dr Martin Ota
Session 3
10:00-10.30 / WCC eLearning / Ms Sheree Bailey
10:30 – 11:00 / Break
Session 4
11:00 – 11:30 / AFRO main strategic directions, priorities and gaps / Dr Joses Kirigia
Session 5
11:30 – 12:00 / Assessment of the WCCs in the AFR / Dr Derege Kebede
Session 6
12:00 – 13:00 / Brief presentations on WCCs by responsible officers focusing on:
- What is working?
- What is not working?
13:0 – 14:00 / Lunch
Session 7
14:00 - 15:30 / Continue brief presentations on WCCs by responsible officers focusing on:
- What is working?
- What is not working?
15:30 – 16:00 / Break
Session 8
16:00 – 17:00 / How do we optimize the use of WCCs?
- What products/outputs from WHOCCs will assist AFRO reaching health goals?
- How do we motivate CCs to work better with us? What incentives can we bring to WHOCCs?
- How do we continue to engage the CCs on a regular basis?
- How can we evaluate WHOCCs? What can be the added value?
Session 9
17:00 - 17:30 / Recommendations, way forward, and closing / Dr Derege Kebede
Report of meeting of WCCs’ Responsible Officers and Technical Counterparts held on 04 June 2015Page 1