67th World Health Assembly adopts resolution on addressing violence

On 24 May 2014, the 67th World Health Assembly (WHA) adopted a historic resolution entitled “Strengthening the role of the health system in addressing violence, in particular against women and girls, and against children”. The resolution, which was co-sponsored by 24 countries, scales up the need to implement the recommendations of the 2002 landmark World report on violence and health.

Significantly for the Center for Global Nonkilling, which is a member of the World Health Organization’s Violence Prevention Alliance and its VPA Research Agenda Project Group, the resolution also called “to continue to strengthen WHO efforts to develop the scientific evidence on the magnitude, trends, health consequences and risk and protective factors for violence, …., and to collect information on best practices, including the quality of care and effective prevention and response strategies in order to develop effective national health systems prevention and response”.

To continue and strengthen its collaboration and involvement, a delegation from CGNK including Governing Council members Bill Bhaneja and Maorong Jiang and Director Joám Evans Pim will attend the 2014 Violence Prevention Alliance Annual Meeting, to be held in Washington D.C., United States, on 14-15 October 2014. The aims of the VPA Annual Meeting are to review preliminary findings from the Global Status Report on Violence Prevention and the implications for the VPA of the World Health Assembly Resolution on violence.