The World Health Organization's Actions Within the United Nations System to Facilitate a Whole-of-Society Response to COVID-19 at Country Level

Abstract

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic highlighted that managing health emergencies requires more than an effective health response, but that operationalizing a whole-of-society approach is challenging. The World Health Organization (WHO), as the lead agency for health within the United Nations (UN), led the UN response at the global level through the Crisis Management Team, and at the country level through the UN Country Teams (UNCTs) in accordance with its mandate. Three case studies—Mali, Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh, and Uzbekistan—provide examples of how WHO contributed to the whole-of-society response for COVID-19 at the country level. Interviews with WHO staff, supplemented by internal and external published reports, highlighted that the action of WHO comprised technical expertise to ensure an effective whole-of-society response and to minimize social disruption, including those affecting peacekeeping in Mali, livelihood sectors in Cox's Bazar, and the education sector in Uzbekistan. Leveraging local level volunteers from various sectors led to both a stronger public health response and the continuation of other sectoral work. Risk communication and community engagement (RCCE) emerged as a key theme for UN engagement at country level. These collective efforts of operationalizing whole-of-society response at the country level need to continue for the COVID-19 response, but also in preparedness for other health and non-health emergencies. Building resilience for future emergencies requires developing and exercising multi-sectoral preparedness plans and benefits from collective UN support to countries. Coronavirus disease had many impacts outside of health, and therefore emergency preparedness needs to occur outside of health too.

Containment strategy during the COVID-19 pandemic among three Asian low and middle-income countries

“…In the early stages of COVID-19, there was less information on transmission and severity, and some countries did not pay sufficient attention to it, which contributed to the global pandemic [ 25 ]. High attention from national to local level in early stages, advanced preparation, rapid policy response, and improvement of emergency management system were the key factors in successfully preventing and controlling COVID-19 [ 26 ].…”

Serving the Vulnerable: The World Health Organization's Scaled Support to Countries During the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Understanding the trajectory, the evolving role of WHO country offices over the course of the pandemic, and the outcome of support, is critical to drive improvement and to enable WHO country offices to do better in future emergencies. While this has been explored for a subset of countries qualitatively ( 22 , 23 ), further data and research are needed to enrichen the understanding of WHO's operational preparedness and response impact. Second, nine country offices provided support to more than one country, therefore the results of the analyses may not fully reflect the direct support to each country served by these offices.…”

Infection Prevention and Control for COVID-19 response in the Rohingya refugee camps: an Intra-Action Review

“…The trainers reached all HWs of all cadres in the district within minimal time by cascading the training using materials centrally availed by the WHO Cox's Bazar Emergency Sub-O ce. This approach proved very fast, effective and e cient for the Cox's Bazar emergency response reaching at least 3600 trained people within 3 months (14). Such trainings should consider trainers who have a certain level of authority or leadership among their peers and can cascade the training to their respective jurisdictions.…”