On 11 September 2022, ministers of health care of five central Asian countries – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan – gathered to endorse the Roadmap for Health and Well-being in Central Asia 2022–2025, WHO/Europe reports.
This strategic document is aimed fostering cooperative responses to crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic, the climate crisis and political instability. The meeting was held in Tel Aviv, Israel on the sidelines of the 72nd session of the WHO Regional Committee for Europe.
The Roadmap builds on the individual health goals and priorities of central Asian countries while also applying the lens of the European Programme of Work 2020–2025 – “United Action for Better Health”, embedding it in the broader regional context.
While tackling significant deficiencies in the health systems of central Asian countries, the Roadmap also aims to accelerate the fulfillment of the nations’ national, regional, and international commitments for health and well-being.
The document serves as a powerful instrument that allows the countries to jointly respond to the intersecting crises affecting them, while remaining politically neutral. This strategy promotes cooperation with partners and assists in coordinating national-level efforts to pursue shared health policy, investment, and technical goals.
The extensive consultations process between WHO/Europe and central Asian countries’ ministries of health, national health authorities and development partners resulted in identifying 11 high-impact action areas and 32 reform initiatives, included in the Roadmap.
This approach enables countries to synergize resource mobilization and facilitate partnerships for transformative change that will create political capital for health and broaden investment opportunities in central Asia; opportunities that focus on the most prominent, high-impact areas of shared priority for improving the health and well-being of the people of Central Asia. ///nCa, 13 September 2022