Extraordinary Meeting of PBAC (Dec 6-7, 2012)

Posted Fri, 2012-08-10 04:40

In EB131(10) the EB mandated an extraordinary meeting of the PBAC in the following terms: 

"(2) the Programme, Budget and Administration Committee of the Executive Board should hold an extraordinary meeting from 6 to 7 December 2012, at WHO headquarters, open to all Member States, which would focus its agenda on: particular aspects of WHO reform; consideration of options developed pursuant to document A65/5 of the Sixty-fifth World Health Assembly on transparency, predictability and flexibility of WHO’s financing; and review of the issues raised by discussions in regional committees concerning the draft Twelfth General Programme of Work and the Proposed programme budget;"

While this meeting is styled a PBAC meeting, the decision specifies that all member states can attend. Whether NGOs will be able to observe has not been explicated.  

The key issues for consideration at this PBAC meeting will be: 

The PBAC will meet after the last of the Regional Committees has met and will have some material from these meetings.  It is not clear how much the PBAC will get into the substance of the GPW and PB or will focus on the structure of these two documents and the relationships between them and the processes of progressing them. 

The scheduling of the funding dialogue and the structures and procedures remain very unclear.  The PBAC will be expected to review these matters and (hopefully) progress them somewhat.