In July 2019, experts in law and public health agreed that the WHO Toolkit for the use of National Legislation in Implementation of the International Health Regulations (IHR) should be revised to reflect the experiences of the past decade, and to incorporate important findings of Joint External Evaluations (JEEs) and the State Party Self-Assessment Annual Reporting (SPAR).

The WHO IHR Secretariat convened an informal expert consultation in Geneva from 3-4 July to review the toolkit 10 years after its launch. The meeting benefited from a remarkable breadth of experience and lively and productive discussion. Work is now under way to develop a new toolkit and the IHR Secretariat continues to benefit from the support of multiple stakeholders in this effort. 

Expert meeting

At the meeting, participants reinforced the need for WHO Member States to use national legislation as part of country-level implementation of the IHR. The participants also supported calls for WHO to develop tools that assist countries in doing this. However it was recognised that any such tools need to be constructed with sufficient flexibility to enable use by all States Parties to the IHR irrespective of the great differences between legal systems across countries.

Discussions at the meeting also focused on analysis of data related to national legislation assessments from both the JEE and SPAR. Analysis from these monitoring and evaluation tools has shown that for most regions, there are significant opportunities to make better use of national legislation in strengthening preparedness against health emergencies. It also shows that despite the recent progress made by many countries, others have yet to complete the necessary reviews to identify how the full potential of legislation can be used to help improve the management of health emergencies as part of the IHR. 

New and updated tools

By examining the various tools that are currently available to support countries to use national legislation for IHR implementation, the meeting identified how many of them are limited by being difficult to use, exist in lengthy forms and do not effectively meet the needs of multiple audiences.

In the decade since the finalisation of the 2009 toolkit much has been learned about country needs, how media channels can be used to disseminate information and how to target key stakeholders. Applying these lessons were recognised as critically important to ensuring that countries are able to expand the use of national legislation to further enhance IHR capacities. WHO has been encouraged to take these insights into consideration and integrate such best practices into the development and roll-out of new tools.