Abstract
The Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), created by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in 1991, serves as the global humanitarian coordination forum of the UN s system. The IASC brings 18 agencies together, including the World Health Organization (WHO), for humanitarian preparedness and response policies and action. Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, the IASC recognized the importance of providing intensified support to countries with conflict, humanitarian, or complex emergencies due to their weak health systems and fragile contexts. A Global Humanitarian Response Plan (GHRP) was rapidly developed in March 2020, which reflected the international support needed for 63 target countries deemed to have humanitarian vulnerability. This paper assessed whether WHO provided intensified technical, financial, and commodity inputs to GHRP countries (n = 63) compared to non-GHRP countries (n = 131) in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis showed that WHO supported all 194 countries regardless of humanitarian vulnerability. Health commodities were supplied to most countries globally (86%), and WHO implemented most (67%) of the $1.268 billion spent in 2020 at country level. However, proportionally more GHRP countries received health commodities and nearly four times as much was spent in GHRP countries per capita compared to non-GHRP countries ($232 vs. $60 per 1,000 capita). In countries with WHO country offices (n = 149), proportionally more GHRP countries received WHO support for developing national response plans and monitoring frameworks, training of technical staff, facilitating logistics, publication of situation updates, and participation in research activities prior to the characterization of the pandemic or first in-country COVID-19 case. This affirms WHO's capacity to scale country support according to its humanitarian mandate. Further work is needed to assess the impact of WHO's inputs on health outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic, which will strengthen WHO's scaled support to countries during future health emergencies.
Highlights
On 30 January 2020, COVID-19 was declared a public health emergency of international concern [1]
This study describes World Health Organization (WHO)’s inputs to countries during the first year of the pandemic and to assess whether proportionally more of the 63-target humanitarian vulnerable countries, as defined by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), received WHO’s support compared to other countries
Initiation of WHO Country Offices’ Support to Countries Occurred Before or by the Time of the First Case Reported in Country or by the Time of Pandemic∧ Characterization
Summary
On 30 January 2020, COVID-19 was declared a public health emergency of international concern [1]. While all countries were expected to be impacted, WHO and the international community recognized that countries with preexisting fragile settings, conflict, or humanitarian crises would be disproportionately affected. Populations in these settings have high disease comorbidity burden, crowded housing, limited access to health or socio-economic protection services, and have a low capacity to implement public health and social measures [3]. Comprised of 18 UN and other humanitarian agencies, including WHO, the IASC recognized that some countries needed heightened levels of support to deal with the initial immediate and urgent health and non-health aspects of the pandemic, including to secure supply chains and other essential services, and to avoid disrupting ongoing operations for preCOVID-19 humanitarian emergencies. The 63 countries included those with an ongoing Humanitarian Response Plan, Refugee Response Plan, or multicountry/subregional response plan, and countries that directly requested international assistance [4]
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