In 30 March 2020, The Eastern Mediterranean regional Office held

 

“THE FIRST FORMAL MEETING FOR REGIONAL NETWORK OF INSTITUTIONS FOR EVIDENCE AND DATA TO POLICY (NEDTP) TO ENHANCE NATIONAL CAPACITY FOR EVIDENCE-INFORMED POLICY-MAKING (NEDtP)” 

 

Recognizing that the Sustainable Development Goals and its call for the universal health coverage, in alignment with WHO’s Thirteenth Global Programme of Work and the regional Vision 2023,  can be only achieved through informed policy making that are based on appropriate, effective and cost-effective evidence.  A technical report presented to Regional Committee in noted that despite a significant increase in the number of research studies in the Region, there are still limitations and shortcomings in strong national institutional capacity and technical expertise in systematic use of evidence-based approaches to make health policy more effective in improving health and equity outcomes. In 2019, (EM/RC66/R.5), requests WHO Regional Office to:

 

• Develop a regional action plan for the implementation of the Framework in consultation with Members States. The regional action plan is intended to support countries to develop national mechanisms to support and enhance evidence-informed policy-making.

 

• Establish a regional network of institutions to support evidence-informed policy-making (NEDtP) at the national level. This network is intended to play an important role in strengthening regional and country capacity to improve the availability, quality and use of evidence for decision making and institutionalizing the use of evidence at national level

 

Accordingly, the network mission focuses on 

• - Strengthening effective communication between key stakeholders (e.g. researchers and health policy-makers); 
• - Fostering collaboration and partnerships at national, regional and global levels; 
• - Sharing experiences and building capacity at national and institutional levels; 
• - Producing high-quality knowledge products for health-policy making; and 
• - Advocating for the use of evidence in all national health policies. 

And its main objectives are to

• - Support national evidence-informed policy-making to for health
• - Enhance regional and national technical capacity to use evidence in health policy developmen
• - Collaborate with Member States to enhance the use of evidence in policy development
• - Support WHO staff in the Eastern Mediterranean in efforts to enhance the use of evidence in policy development
• - Share insights and experiences in support of evidence-informed policy-making by Member States, especially those with successful institutional mechanisms for evidence-informed policy-making
• - Recognize and enhance national and regional expertise in evidence-informed policy-making.

 

NEDtP is established by WHO Regional Office in 2020 including national member institutions, global and regional relevant institutions and NEDtP secretariat and its first meeting was held on 30th March 2021. The meeting was composed of two main sessions:

• Regional initiatives for supporting evidence-informed policy-making and the regional and national

This session included two case studies and a presentation of the main objectives of the meeting 

• Group work with the aim of clarifying the main mandate of the network in particular emphasis on  
  • Identifying the high priority health problems in the region for development of regional Policy
  • Planning to develop an efficient function for NEDtP
  • Identifying the needs to enhance the national capacity for evidence-informed policy-making
  • Identifying the needs to enhance the institutional capacity for evidence-informed policy-making”

 

For the meeting notes, Click Here

 

For the 2019 technical report, Click Here