Highlights of the IANPHI Executive Board Meeting

The IANPHI Executive Board (EB) held a virtual meeting on October 25, 2022. IANPHI President Duncan Selbie welcomed EB members and chaired the meeting.

IANPHI President Duncan Selbie welcomed EB members, the Chairs and Vice-Chairs of the IANPHI Regional Networks, the representatives of the IANPHI Foundation, the IANPHI Offices staff, IANPHI Strategic Adviser and guests of IANPHI-member national public health institutes (NPHIs). The quorum to vote on the decisions was reached with seven members in attendance out of 14, additional to one proxy.

1. Follow-up since August Executive Board Meeting

IANPHI is emerging as an important global actor in public health in the international scene, and the role of national public health institutes (NPHIs) is being increasingly acknowledged. IANPHI was represented at:

• a joint meeting between IANPHI, the Robert Koch Institute, and the WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence on October 12-13
• the World Health Summit in Berlin on October 16-18
• the Public Health and Emergency Workforce Roadmap Steering Committee in Geneva on October 17-19
• the G7 Technical Meeting on Collaborative Surveillance and Public Health Emergency Workforce for Predictable Rapid Response in Berlin on October 14

2. Approval of Voting Documents for the General Assembly of Annual Meeting 2022

The Executive Board approved the following to be presented and voted on the General Assembly: 

• Three applications for Executive Board seats
• Five membership applications from the Public Health Institute of Botswana, the National Institute of Public Health of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the National Public Health Organization (EODY) of Greece, the Jordan Center for Disease Control (JCDC) and the Institute of Public Health of Montenegro (IPHMNE).
• Rwanda Biomedical Centre (RBC)’s candidacy for hosting the 2023 IANPHI Annual Meeting
• IANPHI's finalized 2021 budget, updated 2022 budget and 2023 budget proposal

3. Knowledge Platform Memo approval

First envisioned on the IANPHI Strategy 2021-2025, the Knowledge Platform initiative’s goal is to increase collaboration and dialogue between members, facilitate the share of documents, research and expertise, through LinkedIn groups, Microsoft SharePoint, WhatsApp, etc.

4. Winding Down of the IANPHI Foundation

The IANPHI Foundation is in the process of closing its bank account. The majority of the funds have been transferred from the Foundation account to the IANPHI account. The remaining funds in the Foundation account are as planned, considering all future annual costs that will be debited. The narrative presenting the winding down of the Foundation has been provided to the Finnish authorities. Following their green light, the Foundation will be officially closed down and remaining funds can be transferred to IANPHI with the exception of the initial funding to be returned to the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) Foundation.

5. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Project Update

The Executive Board thanked all countries that contributed to the Integrated Disease Surveillance survey and deep dives. All results have been analyzed and will now be gathered in a report to be submitted at the end of November and presented at the Annual Meeting.