Public Health Officials from the 53 Member States in the WHO European Region came together for the 58th session of the WHO Regional Committee for Europe that took place in Tbilisi, Georgia on 15-18 September 2008.

Discussions included the implementation of the recently signed ‘Tallin Charter on Health Systems and Wealth’ which aims to provide guidance and a strategic framework for strengthening health systems in the WHO European Region.

In her address to the Regional Committee for Europe, Dr Margaret Chan, WHO Director-General, renewed WHO’s commitment to the Millennium Development Goals. IPPF EN was also delighted to see that the Health MDGs were at the top of the agenda of the WHO Regional Director Dr Marc Danzon and Deputy Regional Director Nata Menabde.

IPPF EN is keen on supporting Member States for the implementation of the Charter. In particular, IPPF EN is involved in the debate around the implementation of the provisions on the involvement and participation of stakeholders. An interesting discussion took place with WHO staff about partnership and meaningful involvement of NGOs in the WHO work and contacts have been established with the Member State delegates in charge of developing the implementation plan of the Charter.

The IPPF European Network delegate at the meeting, Advocacy Officer Irene Donadio, made a statement on behalf of IPPF EN on strengthening health systems and SRHR. She underlined the importance of ensuring efficiency and a right based approach. IPPF has created a Quality of Care system to foster delivering high quality services while respecting the rights of the clients.  IPPF Quality of Care model is currently implemented in 34 countries; it was created for reproductive health services but can easily be adapted to any other type of health service. Ms Donadio reminded the delegates that IPPF EN will address the same topic at the forthcoming WHO meeting in Malta on strengthening health systems on family and community care. The meeting will take place on September 29 - October 2, 2008. Ms Donadio also took the opportunity to stress that without universal access to SRHR, the health MDGs cannot be met, even in the European region.

The link to the Tallin Charter is:

http://www.euro.who.int/document/HSM/6_hsc08_edoc06.pdf

For more information on Quality of Care Programme, see: http://www.ippf.org/en/What-we-do/Quality+of+Care+programme.htm