REGIONAL MINISTERIAL MEETING ON

"E-HEALTH" IN AFRICA

ACCRA, GHANA, 10-11 JUNE 2009

Message delivered by Dr Abdelhay Mechbal on behalf of the World Health Organjzation

Honorable Vice President, Republic of Ghana

Honorable Ministers
Honorable Delegates
Dear Colleagues and Participants in the meeting

It's my pleasure to convoy to you the best regards of Dr Margaret Chan, DG of WHO and her
regret for not been able to be with you today.

This meeting, represents a milestone in a series of regional consultations leading to the Economic
and Social Council's Annual Ministerial Review to be held in Geneva in July 2009, as it brings a
number of cross-cutting issues together.

The health sector being knowledge-intensive and requiring systematic and sustained collection of
data, its analysis and the utilization of infonnation for decision making, highlights the timeliness
of having this meeting on eHealth. Use of information and communication technology has
become of strategic importance to enable collection, generation, and utilization of information. In
2005 the World Health Assembly adopted Resolution WHA58.28 establishing an eHealth
strategy for WHO. The resolution calls on governments to fonn national eHealth bodies to guide
policy and strategy development in eHealth including data security, privacy, interoperability,
cultural and linguistic issues, infrastructure, funding, monitoring and evaluation.

WHO has been working with UN sister agencies and pal1ners to implement eHealth systems and
services. Among these has been the International telecommunication Union and the European
Commission. And many others presents in today's meeting.

WHO has initiated a number of activities and projects aiming at supporting member states in their
efforts to develop and sustain eHealth at the national level. The World Health Report 2008 and
the progress reports on Millennium Development Goals have identified the use of ICT as an
enabler and a tool to enhance equity and universal access to health services. The use of Internet to
promote health literacy, the use of databases to monitor progress, the use of tele-health to reach
out to remote communities, the use of mobile phones to monitor health situation and disease
surveillance and the wide spread of e-learning programmes, health mapping and geographic
information systems are just examples of how eHealth can support health systems and services.
Among the global activities that are ongoing within WHO in this field are:

J. eHealth governance. Building and promoting governance structures that address the
rights of individuals, rules and responsibilities of national, regional and global
organizations in the networked world;
2. eLearning and access to health and biomedical research. HINARI is a public private
partnership that enables low and mid income countries to access over 6000 medical
journals free or at a very low cost in J08 worldwide Of wich 40 in Africa.
 REGIONAL MINISTERIAL MEETING ON
"E-HEALTU" IN AFRICA

ACCRA, GHANA, 10-11 JUNE 2009

Message delivered by Dr Abdelhay Mechbal on behalf of the World Health Organization

Honorable Vice President, Republic of Ghana

Honorable Ministers
Honorable Delegates
Dear Colleagues and Participants in the meeting

It's my pleasure to convoy to you the best regards of Dr Margaret Chan, DG of WHO and her
regret for not been able to be with you today.

This meeting, represents a milestone in a series of regional consultations leading to the Economic
and Social Council's Annual Ministerial Review to be held in Geneva in July 2009, as it brings a
number of cross-cutting issues together.

The health sector being knowledge-intensive and requiring systematic and sustained collection of
data, its analysis and the utilization of information for decision making, highlights the timeliness
of having this meeting on eHealth. Use of information and communication technology has
become of strategic importance to enable collection, generation, and utilization of information. In
2005 the World Health Assembly adopted Resolution WHA58.28 establishing an eHealth
strategy for WHO. The resolution calls on governments to form national eHealth bodies to guide
policy and strategy development in eHealth including data security, privacy, interoperability,
cultural and linguistic issues, infrastructure, funding, monitoring and evaluation.

WHO has been working with UN sister agencies and partners to implement eHealth systems and
services. Among these has been the International telecommunication Union and the European
Commission. And many others presents in today's meeting.

WHO has initiated a number of activities and projects aiming at supporting member states in their
efforts to develop and sustain eHealth at the national level. The World Health RepOIt 2008 and
the progress reports on Millennium Development Goals have identified the use ofICT as an
enabler and a tool to enhance equity and universal access to health services. The use ofInternet to
promote health literacy, the use of databases to monitor progress, the use oftele-health to reach
out to remote communities, the use of mobile phones to monitor health situation and disease
surveillance and the wide spread of e-Iearning programmes, health mapping and geographic
information systems are just examples of how eHealth can support health systems and services.
Among the global activities that are ongoing within WHO in this field are:

1. eHealth governance. Building and promoting governance structures that address the
rights of individuals, rules and responsibilities of national, regional and global
organizations in the networked world;
2. eLearning and access to health and biomedical research. HINARI is a public private
partnership that enables low and mid income countries to access over 6000 medical
journals free or at a very low cost in 108 worldwide Of wich 40 in Africa.
 3. Global Observatory for eHealth (GOe). The mission of the GOe is to improve health by
providing Member States with information on effective practices, policies, standards, and
the implementation of eHealth in countries. It gives me pleasure today to announce that
the second version of the survey has been launched as a pilot. The full survey will be
completed and results published early 20 I 0 ..
4. The ePORTUGUESe is a platform to promote and strengthen collaboration among the 8
POituguese-speaking Member States (5 of them in Africa) mostly in the areas of health
information and capacity building of health professionals.
5. The Africa Health Infoway is an ICT-based network of solutions for decision making. It
aims is to reach district health facilities in African countries over 5 years delivering
connectivity to global information, and capacity building through integrated systems to
capture, use and exchange health information.
6. OpenMRS. WHO has played a catalytic role in fostering a standards based approach to
eHealth information in member states. Beyond the traditional role of providing
ministries of health technical assistance in these areas, WHO has helped form and sustain
communities of developers, implementers and users of health information systems to
drive innovation, application and local ownership around health data systems

Md. Chair Person

Searching the Internet and looking at the range of eHeahh activities in countries, one can notice a
proliferation of eHealth projects in almost all countries. Despite this wide range of activities, it is
recognized that eHealth faces serious challenges that require our work together. The collaborative
work and joint responsibility of UN agencies, national governments, non government
organizations and the private sector represent an opportunity to deliver results in this area.
Without this sustained effort eHealth will continue to suffer from absence of national strategies
and policies, disconnection from people's needs, fragmentation, under-resourcing, lack of
standardization and interoperability between among solutions, lack of trained personnel and
suffering from the top down approach of solution development

Md. Chair Person.

Working with ECOSOC on preparation and implementation of this meeting has been an honor
and a pleasure for us. We hope by the end of the meeting member states represented here will
have a consensus on the next steps for making eHealth a real contributor to health equity and to
achievement of primary health care objectives and Millenium Development Goales. We hope
there will be strong commitment by all partners to sustainability of eHealth in Africa, to develop
national eHealth governance, policies and strategies, to develop frameworks for standardization
and interoperability, and to forge public private partnerships that take people's needs into
consideration.

I wish you a successful meeting and look forward to having the outcome of your deliberations
reflected in the Economic and Social Council's Annual Ministerial Review to be conducted in
Geneva in July 2009.