The Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a signatory to the International Health Regulations – IHR (2005).
However, despite multiple efforts, it has yet to meet the required core capacities, which could jeopardize
the country’s travel and trade. Even more important, it means the country is not fully prepared to prevent,
detect and respond to health threats to protect its population, irrespective of whether the threats arise
internally or externally.
The IHR Review Committee on Second Extensions for Establishing National Public Health Capacities and on
IHR Implementation (WHA 68/22 Add.1) recommended in 2014 “to move from exclusive self-evaluation
to approaches that combine self-evaluation, peer review and voluntary external evaluations involving
a combination of domestic and independent experts.” A concept note outlining this revised approach
was discussed by the WHO Regional Committees in 2015, and a revised IHR Monitoring and Evaluation
Framework was noted by the 69th World Health Assembly. As soon as October 2015, during its 62nd
session, the WHO Regional Committee for the Eastern Mediterranean Region had discussed such a new
approach for the assessment and monitoring of IHR implementation.
The WHO Secretariat, with input from partners, including the Global Health Security Agenda, subsequently
developed a Joint External Evaluation (JEE) tool as one of four components of a new framework for IHR
monitoring and evaluation.