CGNK at World Health Organization Violence Prevention Alliance Annual Meeting

The Center for Global Nonkilling participated on October 14-15 at the the two-day 2014 Annual Meeting of the Violence Prevention Alliance (VPA), that was hosted in Washington DC, USA, by the Education Development Center. CGNK was represented by Governing Council members Bill Bhaneja and Maorong Jiang, Director Joám Evans Pim and UN Representative Tom Fee.

Another 70 participants from around the world also attended, representing 46 VPA member organization and a dozen organizations attending as observers. The first day was devoted to discussing how the VPA can support the launch and dissemination of the Global status report on violence prevention, the WHA resolution Strengthening the role of the health system in addressing violence in particular against
women and girls, and against children (WHA 67.15), and the development of a global information system for violence prevention. CGNK reaffirmed its active VPA involvement through its participation in two of its work groups, focused on providing a global research priorities agenda in violence prevention and on fostering academic collaborations.

The second day focused on the work of the VPA project groups and broader questions about the VPA’s aims and strategy in coming years, in particular how to better align VPA activities with recent developments in the field of violence prevention, such as the recent WHA resolution and the Global Plan of Action called for by the resolution. In light of these discussions, it was decided to embark on a process of electronic consultation to revise the VPA’s mission statement and terms of reference in coming months.