WHA: New Draft Decision On Non-State Actors Sets Plan For Next Year

A new draft decision putting action on a proposal for external actors’ engagement with the World Health Organization on track for next year will be considered by a committee at the World Health Assembly.

The draft decision, A67/A/CONF./5 [pdf], emerged overnight after a drafting group failed to agree on the issue this week (IPW, WHO, 22 May 2014).

The draft decision calls for further consultations at the regional level, but avoids reference to setting up an actual working group on the issue.

Proponents of opening WHO up to non-state actors, such as some developed countries, have been working to move the issue quickly. Other countries have worked to slow the pace in order to more carefully assess issues such as private sector influence and preventing conflicts of interest.

Member states are invited to submit “specific” follow-up questions on the draft framework of engagement with non-state actors.

The WHO secretariat will submit an account of the “further consultations” and “the proposed way forward” to the WHO Executive Board meeting in January 2015.