- Background: Call for IFMSA Delegation to 70th WHO Regional Committee for Europe
- Important information:
- Where: online
- When: September 14th-15th, 2019
- Application process: Fill out the application form, including uploading the Candidature Form (signed and stamped by your NMO President) (Link)
- Deadline: August 25th, 2020, 23.59 GMT
Dear everyone,
I am pleased to announce that IFMSA has been invited to participate in the 70th Regional Committee of WHO/Europe, which will take place on the 14th and 15th of September. This time, in light of the epidemiological situation, the meeting will be shortened and will take place online which means that our delegation would be attending virtually.
What is the Regional Committee?
If you’ve heard of the World Health Assembly, this is sort of like that. The Regional Committee – or RC – is a decision making body of the WHO European Region, where members of the region decide on how to move forward with health issues in Europe. The RC is a significant affair, and its outcomes reverberate through decision-making circles all over Europe. The WHO European Region is comprised of more countries than the IFMSA European Region. Countries such as Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan are also included in the WHO Europe region.
Key technical health issues on the agenda include:
- the state of health in the world, including lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic
- The European Programme of Work (2020–2025) – “United Action for Better Health in Europe”
- Transformation in the WHO European Region
- Matters arising from resolutions and decisions from the WHA
- The Regional Committee will also nominate the next Regional Director for Europe at a private meeting at this session.
How to apply for the delegation?
- Fill out this form
- Submit a signed and stamped candidature form (attached)
- Complete both actions by 23:59 GMT on the 25th of August at the latest
The delegation shall be chosen by the Regional Director in collaboration with the RD-elect and will be announced soon after the deadline.
What are we looking for in a delegate?
The delegates shall assist in all preparations for and execution of activities at the Regional Committee. This includes preparing statements, helping with negotiations, attending and reporting from relevant side-events, and much, much more. Hence, the people we are looking for roughly correspond to this list:
- Responsible, hard-working individuals
- Ideally with some experience in external representation
- Ideally with some expertise in one of the topics relevant to the current WHO Europe work
- IFMSA experience, at least to some extent
- Someone with a clear plan on how to follow-up on their experience in the delegation
- Availability before the meeting to participate in the preparations
In choosing the delegation, IFMSA will seek to ensure gender and sub-regional balance. We would also like to encourage less experienced participants to apply – knowledge transfer is a goal in and of itself for us.
To prepare yourself better, please check the manual for IFMSA Delegates and How to write an application Manual.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to approach me.
Warmest regards, Gita
