Partner Coordination

To ensure effective coordination of international partners and stakeholders outlined above at global, regional and country levels, WHO will establish integrated incident management teams at the global, regional and country levels, as required.
These teams ensure regular communication between incident managers at different geographical levels of the response, and close operational coordination with national governments, partners across all sectors, and services at all levels. More specific details of the coordinating mechanisms are given below, grouped by partner type and geographical breadth of activity.

GLOBAL LEVEL

WHO has established an Incident Management Support Team (IMST) together with key operational partners under the leadership of the Director-General. The Director-General will bring together key technical and operational partners to meet on a regular basis to provide updates on the outbreak and take decisions.

At working level, operational partner coordination will be managed through the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN), which includes technical agencies, NGOs, and Red Cross and Red Crescent organizations. GOARN will coordinate global work on surveillance, epidemiology, modelling, diagnostics, clinical care and treatment, and other ways to identify, manage, and limit onward transmission of the virus.

REGIONAL LEVEL
WHO regional offices have established regional IMSTs under the leadership of Regional Directors of the different regions. The IMSTs will coordinate the overall preparedness and response in their respective regions under the different functions. The IMSTs at regional level will work closely with the global level IMSTs to mobilize resources to support and monitor the implementation of activities in countries.

COUNTRY LEVEL
WHO will work through the regional IMSTs to provide guidance and assist national crisis management authorities to implement: enhanced surveillance recommendations; risk communications for the public regarding trade and travel; management of imported cases; and response
to local outbreaks.

In countries where the IASC Humanitarian System-Wide Scale-Up Activation for Infectious Disease Events protocols are activated, a Humanitarian Country Team will be established with context-appropriate coordination structures of which the UN contributions and support is coordinated by the UN Resident Coordinator with the WHO Head of Country Office as overall technical lead, if need be supported by a WHO incident manager. Sub-national coordination hubs will be deployed, including space for non-governmental organizations/civil society involvement, and immediate surge capacity deployments will be requested from IASC member organizations.

Resource Material Credit: WHO https://www.who.int/