Since the launch of the Global Health Emergency Corps (GHEC) in May 2023, WHO, ministries of health and partners have worked to consolidate a vision of an interoperable and globally connected health emergency workforce that can work together on health emergencies. GHEC will enable countries to strengthen their emergency workforce capacities, streamline coordination mechanisms during response efforts and ultimately save lives.
To foster broadened ownership of GHEC, WHO is now rolling out implementation guidance that can be adapted and used at national, regional and global levels. WHO gathered country representatives and partners, from 30 October–1 November 2024, to test the design of the Global Health Emergency Corps through a scenario-based exercise and to discuss concrete steps for implementation.
Ministry of Health representatives from Brazil, Mozambique and Qatar who participated in the GHEC design workshop reiterated the value of the initiative and shared outcomes they foresee.
- Assessing and strengthening emergency workforce capacities. Through GHEC, countries can assess, structure and invest in their national health emergency corps. Dr Soha Al-Bayat, Director of Health Emergency, Ministry of Public Health, Qatar, said, "For countries with robust health security systems, like Qatar, the Global Health Emergency Corps enables us to confirm that we are on the right track and is an eye-opener to workforce-related gaps that exist. Additionally, for other countries in the region who are just starting to build health emergency workforce capacities, GHEC will serve as a tool that they can leverage to secure pollical buy-in to implement the initiative."
- Enabling coordination mechanisms across surge networks. GHEC also outlines modalities for collaboration and support between countries and partners. Pre-established and tested coordination mechanisms are critical during an emergency response. Dr Eduardo Samo Gudo Junior, Director General, Mozambique National Institute of Health, recalled that in 2019 when Mozambique was hit by one of the worst tropical cyclones on record to affect Africa and a subsequent cholera outbreak, the country was inundated by external humanitarian responders. "If we had a mechanism for better coordination – like GHEC now provides — to streamline response efforts, we would have avoided delays, minimized duplication of efforts and better utilized resources," he said.
Echoing the need for better coordination mechanisms in emergency response efforts, Dr Leonardo Gomes Menezes, Specialist, Brazil's Ministry of Health, noted how critical it was to streamline efforts across sectors during recent floods in Southern Brazil, which impacted over 2.3 million people. "Search and rescue teams needed to work closely with medical service providers, and this required immense coordination and collaboration across sectors," he said. "With the coordination mechanisms that GHEC facilitates, we can be far more effective in future emergency responses."
- Connecting emergency health leadership. Through GHEC, emergency leaders are well-connected at all levels so that they can collectively mount coordinated and effective responses to emerging health threats. In alignment with GHEC, WHO is establishing a regional health emergency leaders' network — involving emergency health leaders from across the WHO African and Eastern Mediterranean Regions — to enhance the continent's ability to respond to complex health emergencies. Additionally, WHO is working to establish regional health emergency councils in the WHO South-East Asia and Western Pacific Regions, composed of heads of state and supported by standing and limited tenure committees, to guide pandemic preparedness and public health emergency response efforts. This is part of WHO's efforts with partners to adapt the implementation of the Global Health Emergency Corps in the region under the Asia Pacific Health Security Action Framework (APHSAF).
Implementing the Global Health Emergency Corps
The GHEC design workshop was an opportunity to build further consensus around GHEC and its implementation at the country level. WHO, ministry of health representatives and key partners from across regions were also introduced to generative artificial intelligence (AI) and how it could be used as a tool to operationalize GHEC, empower countries to adapt the principles to their own specific circumstances, and accelerate the dissemination of the innovation.
GHEC enables countries, regions and emergency response partners to assess their health emergency workforce and related coordination structures in a comprehensive manner. Through GHEC, countries can identify elements that are missing or require strengthening to ensure a robust response to health emergencies that can be coordinated effectively with those in neighbouring countries, the region and globally. WHO and partners will work closely with several pathfinder countries to implement GHEC over the coming months, to test the improvements in coordination through a simulation exercise, and to further strengthen the Emergency Corps for the benefit of all countries.
