Capacity Building & Collaboration

The Capacity Building & Collaboration team plays a cross-cutting function across the department of Digital Health & Innovation (DHI) through its collaboration, training, and advocacy activities.

The unit support WHO’s digital health and innovation transformation by strengthening Member States digital health ecosystems, including health workforce capacity strengthening, investment guidance, standards promotion, collaboration and coordination; advocacy on digital health regulations and governance.

The Mission of the CBC unit is: 

• To lead the DHI capacity-building agenda in coordination with DHI units and relevant bodies.
• To Collaborate and coordinate digital health and innovation activities, programmes, and initiatives across the three levels of WHO (HQ-level, Regional-level, and Country-level), Member States, and key partners.
• To advocate Digital Health and Innovation capacity-building activities across WHO and appropriate networks externally to capture best practices.
  

The work of the CBC unit is carried out in the following areas:

Capacity building: 

• Training & Workshops: To support Member States to implement national digital health strategies and plans, including the capacity to evaluate the impact of the strategies.
• Digital literacy: To develop the curriculum as relevant and implement training programmes on digital health topics.
• Advocacy:  To disseminate awareness of digital health regulations and governance to ensure sustainable and long-term development in health systems

Collaboration:

• Strategic Partnerships and  Networks: develop partnerships and foster alliances with civil society,  private and public sectors, and multinationals in the digital health world and across the three levels of the Organization.
  
• Forums and Events: To organize Digital Health & Innovation events, forums, and summits to showcase case studies and innovative initiatives in the field of digital health and innovation, share best practices and lessons learned, and more importantly, to bring together the global digital health community.

The key initiatives undertaken by the CBC team include: 

• Digital Health Courses: Working with partners, the team is training Member States using competency-based digital health courses with an emphasis on digital health implementation.
  
• Digital Health Inventorying: Based on the classification of digital health interventions, the team is supporting the Member States in the registration of digital health products
  
• Digital Health Network of Networks: This initiative serves to unite the various networks, working groups, and key players from all sectors and networks to create a globally coordinated, inclusive, multi-stakeholder digital health community. The initiative aims to accelerate the adoption and scale-up of digital health solutions and serves as a platform to share best practices and lessons learned.
• Global Digital Health Summit: This initiative looks at creating and organizing an annual Digital Health & Innovation event to provide a platform to initiatives worldwide, showcasing their work and innovative solutions in digital health. This event will primarily focus on the initiatives and programmes aligned to the WHO Global Strategy on Digital Health.