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What’s new from the Global Health Cluster?

GHC work plan 2013. The GHC core group held a teleconference on February 19th to finalize the GHC Work-plan for 2013. In line with the decision made in December’s meeting, the GHC will focus this year on 4 strategic priorities; i) Developing mechanisms to ensure surge for key health cluster functions; ii) Support the implementation of the Cluster Performance Monitoring in a minimum of 10 countries in 2013; iii) improve Information management at country Health Cluster level; and iv) improve emergency response and recovery through strengthened country-level preparedness.

New member in the GHC. In December 2012, Medair, a humanitarian Non-Governmental Organization based in Switzerland, expressed interest to become a full member of the GHC. The GHC Core group examined Medair’s application and concluded that the NGO fulfills all the GHC membership criteria, as it is active in the area of providing health services in countries with fragile situations and in areas affected by or recovering from humanitarian crises; and also thanks to its significant global engagement and proven record of quality involvement in the health response in emergencies. Medair became the 40th Member of the GHC on February 6th.

Cluster Performance Monitoring process CPMp. Monitoring performance at national and sub-national level in both sudden onset and protracted crises is necessary to ensure that clusters are efficient and effective coordination mechanisms, fulfilling the core cluster functions, meeting the needs of constituent members, and supporting the delivery of health services to affected populations.

The roll-out of the CPMp in countries with active Clusters and Cluster like coordination mechanisms is a priority for the IASC as stated in the “Reference Module for Cluster Coordination at the country level”. Indeed, for 2013, the IASC is planning a synergized roll -out of the coordination performance monitoring process across all clusters in five countries (OPT, South Sudan, Afghanistan, The pacific/Fiji and Philippines). During the week of March 11th the process was launched in the occupied Palestinian Territory and in South Sudan with the participation of the Health Sector/Cluster.

The Global Health Cluster plays a prominent role in supporting the launching of the process at country level by; i) providing technical support to the country cluster teams; ii) providing a technical platform for the implementation of the online questionnaires to be completed by cluster partners and cluster coordinators; iii) overseeing the generation of an automatized report after the completion of the surveys. The GHC also supports the process by advocating for partners’ active participation in the CPMp and by ensuring representation by relevant senior staff in the final country-level meeting to discuss the results and formulate recommendations for cluster improvement. In line with the GHC Work-plan for 2013, the Global Health Cluster plans to support the process in at least 10 countries including the countries where the IASC is planning a joint roll-out of the process.