Alliance for Transformative Action on Climate and Health (ATACH)

The Alliance for Transformative Action on Climate and Health (ATACH; “the Alliance”) works to realize the ambition set at COP26 to build climate resilient and sustainable health systems, using the collective power of WHO Member States (“Member States”) and other stakeholders to drive this agenda forward at pace and scale; and promote the integration of climate change and health nexus into respective national, regional, and global plans.

Four thematic working groups will work to address common issues:

• Financing the Health Commitments on Climate Resilient and Sustainable Low Carbon Health Systems.
• Climate Resilient Health Systems.
• Low Carbon Sustainable Health Systems.
• Supply chains. 

Functions of the ATACH

• Delivering international shift on priority issues: This function focuses on areas where a global shift can be delivered through the collective power of Member States and other stakeholders, as appropriate. It reflects collective interest of the Alliance as well as context specific themes which may be more applicable to smaller groupings of Member States.
• Monitoring: Support WHO, in its efforts to collect data on country level progress against the commitments made.
• Quality Assurance: Support WHO in developing quality assurance mechanisms designed to help ensure that assessments, plans, and implementation are of the quality required to deliver on commitments made thereby facilitating a common understanding of such commitments and measures of progress. The core aim is to help identify where support is required and to identify best practice.
• Financing: This focuses on identifying financing needs, and support Member State access to finance, including climate finance, in a timely and sustainable way. This information also feeds into the monitoring function, tracking the performance of both domestic as well as donor/ development finance agencies in making funding available to meet Member State commitment needs.
• Knowledge sharing and coordinating access to technical assistance: This function provides a forum for Alliance Participants to share expertise, knowledge and experience on the assessment, planning implementation, financing, and monitoring of commitments. This supports exchange among Participants and access to information to support evidence based and cost-effective delivery of commitments. This may include a function to advise WHO on the coordination of access to technical assistance, either directly (subject to funding availability) or through Participant capacity in line with WHO’s rules and policies.

Participation

ATACH welcomes the participation and support from key stakeholders including government entities, intergovernmental entities, and non-State actors to assist WHO in supporting Member States through knowledge sharing, technical support, capacity development and resource mobilization. More information is available in the How to Apply section.

Status

ATACH is a WHO initiative, an informal voluntary network for Participants to exchange views, share information, and enhance technical and political co-operation. It is not a distinct legal entity, and it derives its legal status from WHO. Thus, it shall be administered by WHO, which provides its Secretariat.

 Note: For a full description of the Alliance for Transformative Action on Climate and Health, please refer to our Terms of Reference, available below. For questions, please contact the WHO climate change team at [email protected] .