Health innovation capacity building program

The World Health Organization (WHO) is seeking offers for the development of a health innovation capacity building program.

BACKGROUND

Innovation in the Western Pacific region has been an important driver of growth, but has historically been unevenly distributed and influenced by the capacities and ecosystems countries have to support innovation. However, the ways in which health innovations are developed and adopted is not necessarily aligned with public health goals and principles and does not necessarily fully reflect the needs of countries and populations in the region. Ensuring that health innovation is aligned with public purpose is complex and requires effective steering and a range of supporting policies, capacities and systems (Mazzucato 2023). Furthermore, as elsewhere in the world, the region lacks frameworks and systems for comprehensive evaluation and evidence generation on health innovation and utilization, to support appropriate regulation and policymaking for scaling health innovations. 

Inspired by the rich landscape of health innovation in the region, and recognizing the urgent need for public sector to play a leadership role in ensuring that health innovation’s public purpose is optimized, and to bridge the gap in exploiting health innovation to address longstanding challenges and growing threats, a Regional Health Innovation Strategy is being prepared to be endorsed at the 74th Session of the Regional Committee in 2023. 

Key objectives and areas of action for WHO collaboration with Member States have been delineated. One primary objective is to bolster the public sector's capacity for health innovation. As an initial step towards achieving this objective, the INR team under the DSI group is seeking a collaborator to co-create a capacity-building program

REQUIREMENTS/WORK TO BE PERFORMED

Output 1: An innovation capacity-building program that is developed based on needs identified among innovation stakeholders within the WHO and our counterparts in Ministries of Health, aiming to enhance the skills, knowledge, capacities, and resources of individuals within the WHO, Ministries of Health, and stakeholder organizations who play pivotal roles in health innovation across the Western Pacific Region.