Community and Civil Society Engagement for the Global Action Plan on SDG3

The Global Action Plan for Healthy Lives and Well-being for All represents a historic commitment to advancing collective action and accelerating progress towards the SDGs. Coordinated by the World Health Organization, the initiative unites the work of 12 leading global organizations active in health. The effort will culminate in a framework that best aligns their resources and objectives for the benefit of partners and people served. Agenda 2030 commitments and aspirational SDGs will not yield significant results without the support of the full international health community. The Global Action Plan for Healthy Lives and Well-being for All aims to develop a clear implementation roadmap and accountability mechanism for 12 global health organizations that puts country impact at the center while also acknowledging and actively supporting the important contributions of non-state actors. In an effort to build on civil society consultations led by the GAP secretariat and the Civil Society Advisory Group, as well as complement any technical briefing on the current GAP process or upcoming deliverables during WHA72, this side event will facilitate a conversation that highlights potential roles for communities and civil society in the execution and evaluation of the Global Action Plan between its launch this fall and the 2030 targets.

By focusing on actionable steps for communities and civil society in supporting countries and multilateral actors to achieve the ambitious goals of the Global Action Plan, this event will augment and advance the work done in 2018 through the joint WHO-CSO Task Team, which worked to help map and categorize civil society actors and design mechanisms to enhance WHO-CSO engagement. The Task Team explored new ways of working that will deepen and systematize WHO’s partnerships with non-governmental actors at country, regional, and global levels across the range of WHO issues, and we recognize that the engagement of civil society is critical in advancing these and other WHO objectives. More information, including the Task Team’s final report released in December 2018, can be found at: www.civilsociety4health.org.