Climate Change,Mitigation&Sustainable Health-systems Officer in Bonn bei World Health Organization

OBJECTIVES OF THE PROGRAMME

The Division of Communicable Diseases, Environment and Health (CDE) assists country efforts to reduce the burden of communicable diseases and addresses the social, economic and environmental determinants of health, and promotes policies and actions for health through stewardship of the WHO European Healthy Cities Network. It focuses on health promotion measures, behavioral insights; communicable diseases such as tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and hepatitis, and vector-borne and neglected tropical diseases; elimination and control of vaccine-preventable diseases and advocacy for increased use of vaccines; containing and controlling antimicrobial resistance; addressing existing and emerging environmental health risks and supporting violence and injury prevention. A determination to ensure universal access to people-centred quality health services across the continuum of care is matched by enriching the evidence base for policy design and interventions using social, cultural and behavioral approaches, to drive implementation of innovation at national, regional and local levels. The WHO European Centre for Environment and Health (ECEH) in Bonn, Germany, provides technical and scientific expertise on the impacts of environment on health. It delivers to countries policy advice, tools to inform and support decision-making in the areas of air quality, access to safe drinking-water, sanitation and hygiene, minimizing the adverse effects of chemicals, adaptation to and mitigation of climate change, environmental sustainability of health systems, urban health planning, including transport and mobility work, as well as violence and road traffic injury prevention. WHO ECEH works with all units to develop collaborative initiatives addressing environment-related diseases. It strengthens country capacities to address environment and health challenges through development and delivery of a range of training courses on environment and health, including on health impact assessment. The programme on living and working environments (LWE) covers air quality, health aspects of climate change mitigation, chemical safety, environmentally sustainable health systems, noise and occupational health. LWE provides leadership and capacities in the WHO Regional Office for Europe in the above-mentioned areas, and technical assistance to Member States to strengthen their capacities in developing and implementing policies, strategies and actions. The work of LWE is aligned with the strategic WHO directions as set in the relevant WHA resolutions and roadmaps, contributes to the implementation of GPW13 and the commitments taken under the Ministerial Conferences on Environment and Health, as well as to the achievement of the2030 global Agenda for Sustainable Development and the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement; it also supports implementation of global and regional environmental agreements on the health aspects of air quality and chemical safety.

DESCRIPTION OF DUTIES

To coordinate multi-country and national level work on climate change and health, focusing on mitigation, and on climate/environmental sustainability of health systems; to support countries in these domains through facilitating the development and implementation of evidence-informed policies, actions and capacity building in the health and other sectors; to prepare relevant evidence syntheses and to advance assessment methods and tools; to coordinate integration of climate and environmental sustainability considerations across programmes in the WHO Regional Office for Europe and to strengthen strategic leadership and engagement of the WHO Regional Office in regional and global processes.

Key duties:

• Under the supervision and guidance from Programme Manager LWE, the incumbent will assume the following responsibilities and achieve the following objectives:
• Provide technical support to Member States in developing and implementing evidence-informed policies and actions to advance climate and environmental sustainability of health systems;
• Collate evidence on effectiveness of actions to enhance climate and environmental sustainability