Dear Tamar,

 

I am contacting you on an urgent issue and I apologize for the short notice.

 

It is about the Global Health Diplomacy seminar that we agreed to organize in Georgia for a long time, but we kept postponing it because of the change in the leadership of our main partner – the Graduate Institute in Geneva.

As a result, a formal letter from our regional director was not sent to the ministry and the remaining time for preparations is very short for initiating a formal correspondence now.

 

On the other hand, we worked intensively with all the actors involved and initiated the necessary contracts with institutions and experts involved, arranged their travel, production of materials and other logistics.

The main local partner at technical level is NCDC, but we can organize the seminar under the auspices of the ministry and we hope you can come also for the opening.

 

You can find below detailed information about the event and attached the preliminary agenda.

 

I would appreciate very much your confirmation at this stage for sending out invitations and continuing preparations.

Meanwhile we could proceed with preparing a formal letter from Regional Office, if needed.

 

Many thanks and sorry again for the created inconveniences.

Silviu

 

 

 

Health Diplomacy Course for senior policy makers

Tbilisi, Georgia, 9^th – 10^th December 2019

 

I am happy to inform you that the World Health Organization, Regional Office for Europe is planning to hold a two day seminar on ‘Health Diplomacy’. This seminar is scheduled to take place from the 9^th-10^th December in Tbilisi, Georgia.  To date, WHO/EURO has organized many seminars as part of an initiative aiming to build capacity in the WHO European Region in global health diplomacy and has tailored such seminars to different parts of the region including South Eastern Europe, Central Asian Republics, Newly Independent States and some of the EU Member States.

 

As you know, health and diplomacy are both in a process of transformation. The broad political social and economic implications of health issues have brought diplomats into the health arena and more public health experts into the world of diplomacy.  Health is increasingly becoming an integral part of foreign policy and international cooperation.  This highlights the increasing relevance of global health diplomacy in this day and age, as it brings together the disciplines of public health, international affairs, management, law and economics and focuses on negotiations that shape and manage the global policy environment for health.  Furthermore, health diplomacy will be even more relevant in this era of Sustainable Development Goals.

 

It is also becoming increasingly evident that new skills in health diplomacy are needed for health and foreign affairs professionals to navigate the changing health landscape in order to discuss regional and global health issues, negotiate international initiatives, agreements, and treaties and to maintain relations with an increasing number of actors. This multi stakeholder environment is becoming more obvious at global events including global health meetings such as the WHO governing bodies, where NGOs, advocacy groups foundations and academia all come together to influence the decisions taken by the member states on public health.

 

The main objectives of this seminar are:

 

1.      To familiarize representatives of institutions, ministries and other national stakeholders with the concept and approaches of Global and Regional Health Diplomacy.

2.     To discuss with the representatives advantages and implications of global health policy in the implementation of SDGs

3.      To inform senior officials on discussions/negotiations on global health issues especially priority health issues that will be discussed in forthcoming sessions of WHO Governing bodies including the World Health Assembly and related events.

 

The seminar will be organized by the WHO Regional Office for Europe in collaboration with independent experts and will be kindly hosted by the Ministry of Internally Displaced Persons from Occupied Territories, Labour, Health and Social Affairs of Georgia.

 

The language of the seminar will be English

 

I wish to invite you consider nominating up to three senior governmental officials (preferably from different ministries) who are likely to be engaged in global health discussions and negotiations. These officials should ideally be from different ministries to ensure an intersectoral spirit to the discussions.  I will also share this invitation directly including the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Foreign Affairs as this is crucial to achieving the course objectives.

 

I would like to recommend the following criteria when considering to nominate participants for this seminar.

 

1.      The participants should be professionals who can apply new knowledge and skills learnt to their daily work after the course.

2.      In order to foster mutual learning among professionals with diverse perspectives, participants should be selected based on various criteria, such as gender, education background, professional achievements/career level, sector, institution.

3.      Participants should be:

 

a.            nominated by their respective institution (or government) and thus have the full support for their participation;

 

b.            mid- or senior professionals in one of the following institutions:

·                Ministry of Health

·                Ministry of Foreign Affairs

·                Development cooperation agencies

·                Other Ministries, such as those responsible for environment, education, justice, finance or road transport

·                Possibly representatives from NGOs, the private sector, and academia

 

c.           directly or indirectly involved in health-related programme activities but with specific experience in negotiations at the national, regional and international levels;

 

d.           able to act as multipliers within their respective department/government/institution;

 

e.           able to speak/write/read English fluently;