WHO and WFP’s INITIATE2 looks for rapid solutions for emergency response
A team of WHO technical and health experts setting up a COVID-19 treatment center in a football field in São Tomé and Príncipe, which was subsequently run by an Emergency Medical Team. ©WHO/2020/Jean Pierre Veyrenche
A treatment centre that can be set up within hours, a kit to convert a regular vehicle into an ambulance, ultra-cold chain and solar energy technologies, and a basecamp for emergency responders. These are all ideas that could speed up emergency response and save lives.
To this end, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) launched INITIATE2 in 2021, to strengthen partnerships among emergency responders and humanitarian agencies and to develop innovative solutions that can be quickly deployed in health emergencies.
A Field Hospital in Ghana, managed by WFP staff to care for humanitarian workers who may contract COVID-19 in the course of duty. Facilities like this will be turned over to the Government, including generators, pre-fabricated offices, and mobile ambulances. ©WFP/2020/Michael Dakwa
The first project being rolled out under the initiative is a rapidly deployable infectious diseases treatment centre. This centre will be able to provide for high-quality care for a range of diseases through all stages of an outbreak.
Once the specifications are validated, a prototype of the centre will be tested and fine-tuned, to be eventually used in a large-scale emergency simulation exercise. During the simulation, logisticians will be trained on how to deploy and dismantle the facilities; while health responders will be trained on their use and management.
The initiative will leverage the existing infrastructure of the United Nations Humanitarian Response Depot (UNHRD) in Brindisi, Italy which hosts a dedicated humanitarian training centre and the UNHRD Lab, a research and development unit where innovative emergency response products are developed and tested.
In 2021, WHO hosted a training on Ebola Disease case management in Côte d'Ivoire, during and in response to the outbreak of Ebola virus disease in neighbouring Guinea. ©WHO/2021/WCO Cote d’Ivoire
“INITIATE2 combines the expertise and the experiences of WHO and WFP and their partners, to create standardised technical solutions to support relief efforts – with a holistic and inclusive focus on people, skills, and technology. Partners complement each other’s needs with their own unique and specialised capacities or resources in this new out-of-the box approach,” says Dr Ibrahima Soce-Fall, WHO Assistant Director-General for Emergency Response.
INITIATE2 enables humanitarian actors to gain and share knowledge, and translate these skills in local communities to improve country-level emergency response. It builds on the integrated, end-to-end technical and operational capacities of the COVID-19 Supply Chain System, also led by WHO and WFP.
WFP staff member working with a member of the Cote D’Ivoire Medical Store inspecting supplies for distribution and treatment in the local community. ©WFP/SAPH/2021
It also creates a space for innovation to grow, as partner organisations can propose their own projects and ideas and benefit from their collective expertise, and from their dedicated resources.
WHO develops the standards on emergency response and preparedness, provides technical guidance, develops the health components of trainings, and prepares the teams to be deployed in times of emergencies. WFP supports the design, development and sourcing of the prototypes and makes available the space and the facilities for innovations and trainings.
Important medical equipment arriving in Ghana in May 2020, early in the pandemic. The UN Humanitarian Response Depot in Accra supports emergency preparedness and response for the West and Central African regions. ©WFP/2020/Derrick Botchway
Partner organisations in INITIATE2 will have an active role in developing the technical specifications and bringing their respective sectoral expertise into, the training content. These partners include ALIMA, Bring Hope Foundation, CUAMM, DG ECHO, FAO, FDFA Switzerland, GOAL, IOM, ICRC, IFRC, IRC, IMC, Medair, Medical Aid Films, MSF, Samaritan’s Purse, Save the Children International, UNICEF, USAID, and Word Vision International.
“It’s about using collective knowledge and expertise to find solutions that will work across a range of settings and that will support the needs of the community of health and humanitarian partners in future health emergencies,” says Alex Marianelli, WFP Director of Supply Chain. “COVID-19 showed us just how much we could achieve when we all rallied together to respond, and it’s in this spirit that we want to build further on this collaboration through the INITIATE2 project.”
Long before COVID-19, WHO and WFP have worked with UN partners and other humanitarian organisations. In the 2019 Cyclone Idai, WFP dispatched health supplies from WHO to support the emergency response in Mutare, Zimbabwe. ©WFP/2019/Alicia Stafford
This holistic and collaborative approach creates a fully end-to-end process that will support readiness, response and resilience. “Working with our partners, we will be able to empower international and national technical experts and emergency responders for a lasting positive impact in the communities we serve,” says Dr Fall.