In order to ensuring health security in the African Region there is a pressing need to strengthen national capacities for effective response to health emergences, World Health Organization AFRO Region has launched three flagship initiatives to strengthen countries’ capacity to prepare for, detect and respond to emergencies.

In order to ensuring health security in the African Region there is a pressing need to strengthen national capacities for effective response to health emergences.

Three flagship initiatives are the ‘Detect’ Flagship: Transforming African Surveillance System (TASS) which aims to reinvigorate stronger, integrated surveillance systems across Africa, and enable detection and action to prevent or timely respond to outbreaks.

Then ‘Prepare’ Flagship or Promoting Resilience of System for Emergencies (PROSE) that aims to strengthen the ability of countries to plan and anticipate choc events.

Lastly, the ‘Response’ Flagship: Strengthening and Utilizing Response Groups for Emergencies (SURGE) which aims at ensuring governments are equipped to mobilize resources and respond to public health emergencies within the first 24-48 hours.

A scoping mission from WHO AFRO was conducted in Rwanda from 18^th to 23^rd September 2022 with an overall objective to meet national authorities and local stakeholders to take stock of the existing preparedness and response system, gaps and challenges, which will guide the development of action plans and road map for the 3 programs.

During the kickoff session of the mission, Dr. Tharcisse Mpunga, the State Minister in charge of Primary Healthcare said that the interventions will boost the capacity of Rwandan health sector institutions and scale up their capability to better prepare against any health emergency.

In addition, Mpunga pointed out that over the past two years, there have been various lessons learned and challenges the country faced in terms of readiness in combating the pandemic amidst the global outbreak of Covid-19.

Minister Mpunga further stressed the impact of a multi-sectorial approach in responding to the pandemic, saying that the initiatives will help the country in detecting, preparing, and responding to any future pandemic.

Commenting on the initiatives, Dr. Brian Chirombo WHO country representative to Rwanda pointed out that the world passed through a hard time due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the assessments were done to see how we responded globally and how WHO did its part in terms of coordinating emergency response.

Speaking on the origin of this initiative, he disclosed that it originated from the assessments done during the Covid-19 pandemic and the role of WHO in restoring health access.

“That is how the idea of strengthening the African health capacities came about”.

In addition, he said that in terms of preparedness, lockdowns among other pandemic restrictions have shown that countries have to be strong and have expenses.

“WHO has come up with such initiatives basically to make sure that the country can be able to detect public health emergencies quickly and secondly be prepared for anything that comes and finally respond to it,” he said

Moreover, Chirombo pointed out that the responding party will cover different areas of the health sector.

Chirombo also pointed out that WHO and government will sign an MoU which shows the commitment of the two entities in implementing these initiatives and also look at other partners that can be brought on board.

Concluding the meeting, the two parties agreed on strengthening cross border surveillance and coordination,

Improving clinical care for infectious diseases and other International Health Regulation (IHR) related hazards, ensuring the timely provision of logistics and supplies, sustaining health workforce for emergency preparedness of multi-hazards management across all levels and ensuring predictable financing for public health emergencies preparedness activities.

The team designed a roadmap across different pillars of risk communication and community engagement, readiness and coordination, field operations and logistics support.