Kampala, 20th May 2016:- The WHO Country Office (WCO) in Uganda hosted a two day international workshop on the newly introduced Strategic Partnership Portal (SPP) that aims at building stronger health systems for sustainable health security in WHO member states.

The SPP is an online tool that allows countries, donors and partners to see all funding coming into a particular country and how it is distributed and other information collected from national authorities and stakeholders. 

The SPP centralizes all information on donor funding allowing strategic collaboration and matchmaking to avoid duplication and wastage of resources.  It provides greater clarity about the needs and gaps at country, regional and global levels of WHO. 

The SPP was established in 2015 during the Global Health Security meeting held in Cape Town, South Africa. Member States mandated WHO to establish the SPP to bring together countries, donors and multisectoral partners to build strong and sustainable health security. At the time, there were no coordinated global efforts to build and implement International Health Regulations (IHR) capacities in countries that can rapidly identify, assess, contain and respond to public health threats and emergencies. 

In other words, SPP nurtures commitment, supports collaboration, ensures coordination and facilitates timely information sharing among donors, countries and stakeholders.

The WHO Representative to Uganda Dr Wondimagegnehu Alemu hoped that the tool once fully operational will expand and transform the way “we do business in WHO”.  He thanked the organizers for making WCOs part of the arrangement to effectively collaborate with donors and advance country preparedness and response plans.

The WHO SPP Team Lead Mr Ludy Suryantoro committed to fully support and empower country offices noting that the SPP is a useful tool that will advance “collaboration and coordination with countries and at regional and headquarters levels”.  He added that the tool will further advance the vision of one WHO as the organization works with donors, partners and stakeholders on global health security.

At the workshop, new SPP focal persons from nine WCOs in Africa were introduced to the tool and tasked to collect country data and information, input it into the system and to support their WHO Representatives in discussions with donors and partners on preparedness and response plans.

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For more information, please contact:

Mwebembezi Edmond, Tel.: +256 414 335569, Cell: +256 782 962674, Email:mwebembezie [at] who.int