Transparency and integration with the JEE
Transparency is a cornerstone of global cooperation around health security capacity-building and emergency response. It enables decision makers to track how global health initiatives are financed, detect and respond quickly to emergent outbreaks, coordinate responses with international partners and ensure accountability in public–private partnerships.23–27 COVID-19 has recently reaffirmed the importance of transparency in case reporting, surveillance and containment, especially as countries take steps to resume routine economic, social and educational activities. Transparency in scientific practice has also proven crucial during COVID-19. For example, open exchanges of clinical data, biological samples, genetic sequence data, modelling parameters and assumptions and epidemiological data support evidence-based policymaking around reopening schools and economies, forecasting demand for healthcare services and equitable allocation of scarce resources.28–31
Given the demonstrated importance of transparency in coordinating effective multilateral responses to pandemic threats, the GHS Index also prioritises publicly available evidence of relevant capacities. Thus, countries without publicly documented evidence of these capacities receive lower scores. The drawback of this approach is that a country possessing a given capacity without sharing corresponding evidence via official channels may receive an artificially low score. To reduce the risk of under-scoring, we invited government officials at 195 embassies and missions to the United Nations to review our data with their respective National IHR Focal Points, course-correct our work and share additional information. However, only 16 countries responded to these requests, for which only minimal changes to scoring were necessary.1
The GHS Index is underpinned by the principle that ‘a health threat anywhere is a health threat everywhere,’ an ethos championed by the architects of the GHSA.32 We believe that data describing national health security capacities should be a public good. In this spirit, we anchored the GHS Index in publicly available data and made the tool itself—and all its data—freely available. To ensure alignment with the JEE and integration of all publicly available information shared by countries, the GHS Index also draws heavily from WHO’s repository of publicly available JEE reports. Moving forward, we strongly encourage all countries to document relevant capacities publicly—both in the interest of global cooperation and transparency, and to improve the fidelity of future monitoring efforts.