Strategic Plan

Abstract

[Summary] 1. This Strategic Plan 2008-2012 (SP 08-12, or the “Plan”), is the Organization’s highest-level planning instrument, approved every five years by the Pan American Sanitary Conference. The Plan sets out PAHO Strategic Objectives and the Pan American Sanitary Bureau’s (PASB or the “Bureau”) expected results for the planning period. It is a product of the efforts of country offices, centers, and technical and administrative areas throughout the Bureau. Staff at all levels has had the opportunity to participate in the Plan’s development and to comment on its contents.

2. The Plan is intended as a transparent instrument that allows Member States to understand what programmatic results will be achieved using resources—both assessed and voluntary—that they and others may provide to the Bureau for the planning period. The Plan is also the basis for all subsequent planning and programming in the Bureau from 2008 to 2012. The document will not only guide the Pan American Sanitary Bureau’s work, but is a comprehensive sum of the work to be carried out by the Bureau during this period.

3. This planning cycle has been re-designed in a results-based management (RBM) framework to allow for the aggregation of results throughout the Organization, with unprecedented vertical integration among all levels of planning. The common results and indicators set out at the global, regional, subregional and country levels will allow for simplified and more transparent planning, monitoring and reporting of the Bureau’s work. This is a key element in the full implementation of results-based management.

4. The strategic direction of the Bureau is set out herein, based on the Health Agenda for the Americas 2008-2017 and on WHO Eleventh General Programme of Work 2006-2015. The Bureau seeks to maintain a balance between programmatic alignment with WHO and the regional specificity demanded by PAHO Member States, notably in the Health Agenda. The Bureau has adopted WHO six Core Functions, which will allow for analysis of expenditures from a new and managerially useful perspective.

5. The 16 Strategic Objectives, based on WHO, are the programmatic core of this Plan, and are meant as common objectives for PAHO Member States as well as the Bureau. Each Strategic Objective incorporates several Region-wide Expected Results (RERs) that the Bureau is accountable for achieving. The Strategic Objectives and RERs are based on the Region’s known public health concerns—as analyzed in the Situation Analysis—but are sufficiently flexible to allow the Bureau to respond to emergent issues and threats as they arise.

6. The final section of the Plan lays out the Bureau’s implementation strategy, programmatic prioritization, financing, and the means for performance monitoring and assessment, and independent evaluation.