A global consensus to strengthen public health has emerged over the past few years. The Global Health Summit, in May 2021, and its Rome Declaration recognized the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the reversal of public health gains and the sacrifices from the health and care workforce. The Rome Declaration subsequently informed the 2021 G20 Italia Declaration of Health Ministers, which promotes investment in health systems and public health workforce strengthening as a pre-requisite for all countries.
The fifth Steering Committee meeting will be held in Geneva, Switzerland from 24-25 March 2026. Where previous meetings in Geneva (October 2022), London (February 2023), Rome (July 2023) and Amman (October 2024) focused on aligning the vision, agreeing on an action plan and developing a set of guidance around the three action areas of defining essential public health functions, mapping and measuring occupations and strengthening competency based education, the fifth Steering Committee aims take stock of progress, co-design national and regional activities in 2026-2027 and reinvigorate commitment to increase uptake of the guidance and tools to accelerate implementation and progress in countries around the world.
This event coincides with the inception meeting for a new initiative in South east Asia and the Western Pacific.
About the Roadmap
Achieving and sustaining progress towards global health goals such as universal health coverage and health security requires a health and care workforce that can deliver the full range of essential public health functions, including emergency preparedness and response. As countries recover and turn attention to investments in health systems to meet diverse challenges, now is an opportune time to bolster the public health workforce, including those personnel charged with emergency preparedness and response functions. This roadmap is the result of joint efforts across leading public health and emergency response experts, organizations and associations.
About the Steering Committee
The Steering Committee comprises over 80 members, including government, associations, institutions and schools of public health civil society organisations and philanthropic partners. The active contributions of the Steering committee have been pivotal in developing and convening to endorse a collection of technical tools to be adapted for country context to benchmark and create action plans.