18 October 2022, Geneva |The political declaration of the 2018 United Nations High Level Meeting on tuberculosis (TB) includes commitments by member states to “ensuring strong and meaningful engagement of civil society and affected communities in the planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the tuberculosis response, within and beyond the health sector”. The 2020 UN Secretary-General progress report on TB includes priority recommendations to accelerate the TB response and reach targets through meaningful engagement of civil society and affected communities in the TB response. In view of the major developments in global public health, WHO is updating its guidance on community and civil society engagement to end TB.
A draft of the guidance has been developed with inputs from the national TB programmes, WHO Civil Society Task Force on TB, WHO staff (from headquarters, regional and country levels), technical partners and other civil society representatives. In September, WHO convened a 2-day stakeholder consultation to review the draft guidance and solicit further stakeholder inputs as part of the development process. The draft guidance is now available online for comments from all stakeholders.
WHO invites comments or feedback from all stakeholders by 7 November 2022 here.
Publication of the guidance is expected in December 2022.
For more information, please contact Tauhid Islam (islamt@who.int) or Lana Syed (syedl@who.int).
Source: World Health Organization