Attachments
Executive summary
WHO has developed the Strategic Toolkit for Assessing Risks (STAR) to help countries perform multisectoral All-Hazard Risk Assessment.
The STAR toolkit is designed to assess health emergency risks for all hazards and is aligned with the International Health Regulations (IHR 2005). It ensures the availability of core capacities, provides a systematic, transparent, and evidence-based approach to identifying and classifying priority hazards by level of risk; defines the level of preparedness and readiness to mitigate risks; informs the development of all hazard preparedness and response plan and finally supports the use of limited resources more effectively and efficiently through addressing priority risks/hazards with max impact on vulnerable populations.
To review and update Whole of Syria (WoS) 2022 risk profile exercise, WoS health sector in coordination with the Cluster Lead Agencies (CLAs), health sector coordinators across WoS response areas: the UN Humanitarian Country Team response areas (HCT), Northwest Syria (NWS) and Northeast Syria (NES), and other relevant sectors conducted an All-Hazards Risk Assessment exercise between September and December 2023. A series of online consultative meetings were organized to undertake the risk assessment using STAR tool by reviewing and analysing current public health response situation, and through expert contributions from relevant technical experts, health sector teams across all response areas and other concerned sectors. 27 potential hazards were identified with varying consequences on the health sector ranging from moderate to very high impact.
Based on the risk ranking classification, the identified hazards risks were distributed as follows:
• Very High risks: 7.
• High risk: 12.
• Moderate risks: 8.
The findings of this All-Hazards Risk Assessment exercise will inform the development of the WoS health sector All-Hazards Preparedness and Response Plan. This will support a coherent, wellcoordinated emergency preparedness and response to prioritized and predicted hazards across WoS response areas.