Governing bodies: review of the decisions and resolutions of the sixty-first World Health Assembly and the 122nd and 123rd sessions of the Executive Board.

Abstract

The attached working paper highlights the most significant and relevant decisions and resolutions emanating from the Sixty-first World Health Assembly (‎held from 19-24 May 2008)‎ as well as the 122nd and 123rd Sessions of the Executive Board (‎held from 21-26 January 2008 and on 26-27 May 2008 respectively)‎. These decisions and resolutions are particularly relevant to the Member States of the WHO South-East Asia (‎SEA)‎ Region, have obvious and immediate implications for them, and would merit follow-up action by both Member countries as well as WHO at the Regional Office and Country Office levels. During the Sixty-first World Health Assembly, Member countries of the SEA Region made consolidated statements on behalf of the Region on seven agenda items, which they themselves identified after considerable discussion among themselves. This was the first time that such an exercise had been undertaken. The background of the selected decisions/ resolutions, highlights from the main operative paragraphs of these selected decisions/ resolutions, as well as the regional implications of each decision and/or resolution, as applicable, and actions proposed for Member States and WHO have been presented. The working paper is submitted for consideration by the Meeting of the Advisory Committee (‎ACM)‎ to review technical matters to be discussed at Sixty-first Session of the Regional Committee in 2008, with particular reference to the regional implications and actions proposed to be taken towards implementation of the recommendations contained in the selected decisions/ resolutions. The ACM may wish to consider the decisions/ resolutions as relevant (‎details of these decisions/ resolutions are provided in the Annex to this paper)‎. The views and recommendations of the ACM will be submitted to the Sixty-first Session of the Regional Committee in New Delhi for review and noting, as appropriate.