Twenty Third Meeting

Committee of Senior Representatives (CSR)

Twenty third Meeting

Berlin, Germany

24-25 April 2014

Title / Minutes from the 23rdMeeting of the NDPHS Committee of Senior Representatives
Submitted by / Secretariat
Summary / Note / This document outlines the main discussion points and decisions made during the 23rdmeeting of the CSR
List of Annexes / Annex 1 – Revised draft report on the implementation of the NDPHS Strategy 2010-2013
Annex 2 – Revised contents of the NDPHS Strategy 2014-2020
Annex 3 – List of participants
Annex 4 – List of documents submitted to the meeting

1. Opening of the meeting and welcome

The meeting was opened by Ms. Liis Rooväli, the NDPHS CSR co-Chair, who – in the absence of the CSR Chair – chaired it.

The Host, Dr. Karsten Steinig of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Germanywelcomed the participants and wished them a fruitful meeting.

2. Adoption of the agenda

The Meeting adopted the Provisional agenda with timetable as submittedin document CSR 23/2/1.

3. Information by the NDPHS Chairmanship and the NDPHS Secretariat

Germany and the Secretariatbriefly informed about their main activities during the period from the PAC 10 held in Helsinki, Finland, which would not be addressed during the following agenda items.

In particular, Germany informed about the outcomes of the 4th Senior Officials Meeting of the Renewed Northern Dimensionheld on 8 April 2014 in Oslo, Norway and, with reference to document CSR 23/4/Info 1, drew the attention to the Chair’s Conclusions from the Meeting and paragraphs of relevance for the NDPHS. Further, it informed about bilateral contacts with Poland and Denmark regarding their participation in the NDPHS and invited other Partners to use their bilateral contacts to encourage Poland and Denmark toparticipate in the Partnership as a fully-fledged member.

With reference to two articles in the EUSBSR newsletter (submitted as document CSR 23/3/Info 1), the Secretariatinformed about efforts to publicize results of the Partnership’s good work. Further, it informed about the joint letter, initiated by the NDPHS Secretariat and signed by 20 EUSBSR Priority Area Coordinators and Horizontal Action Leaders, sent to the Baltic Sea Region Programme 2014-2020 Joint Programming Committee and the DG REGIOregarding the EUSBSR Technical Assistance funding, expressing concern about the plans to lower the amount of funding for technical assistance to be available to PACs and HALs and to increase the co-financing rate. It noted, however, that the most recent information suggested there were good developments in this regard. Finally, the Secretariat thanked Germany for voluntary contributions provided in 2013, which allowed the Partnership to benefit in a very concrete way, including in efforts to help develop the new NDPHS strategy and its action plan.

The Meeting took note of the presented information and thanked Germany for its generous voluntary contributions.

4. Information by the NDPHS Partners and Participant

Russia(Ministry of Health) informed about the development of national intersectoral programme for rehabilitation of psychotropic drug users, which includedmeasures such as creation of rehabilitation centers and cooperation with NGOs. Further, it informed that the results of the national priority project “Health” and the programme of medical care modernization were currently being discussed and completion of this analysis would lead to practical measures.

Further, Russia(Ministry of Foreign Affairs) informed about the outcomes of the 5th Northern Dimension Forum that took place on 3 April 2014 where the NDPHS was represented by Ms. Eeva-Liisa Haapaniemi, Consul for Social Affairs and Health at the Consulate General of Finland to St. Petersburg, who gave a speech on behalf of the NDPHS CSR Chair. It also informed about the outcomes of the 4th Senior Officials Meeting of the Renewed Northern Dimensionheld on 8 April 2014 in Oslo, Norway and stressed that Russia still considered the ND as a very important forum, supported the depoliticized character of this cooperation, was willing to continuethis cooperation and had already started preparations for the ND ministerial level meeting to be held in Reykjavik in 2015. Finally, it informed about the ongoing EU-Russia work for elaboration of common priorities based on the two relevant strategies and regretted that the work was not progressing faster, since Russiahad hoped to have the priorities agreed upon earlier.It would also be very important to include these priorities in the process of development of the new NDPHS strategy.

Estoniainformed about several meetings that it had hosted, including the 10th Baltic Policy Dialogue, held on 28-29 November 2013 and the 5th Working meeting of the EUSBSR held on 9-10 April 2014. It further informed about the green papers on alcohol and tobacco and a white paper on drug prevention that the Estonian Government had adopted, as well as the ongoing process of developing a green paper on nutrition. Finally, it informed that as of 26 March 2014 Estonia had a new government and Mr. Urmas Kruusewas the new Minister for Health and Labour.

Swedeninformed about recent national developments such as major reconstruction of public health authorities under the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs: from 1 January 2014 the Institute for Public Health and the Institute for Communicable Disease Control were merged into one single public health authority. A new authority on e-health, as well as a new authority for supervision had also been established. Finally, it informed that the upcoming general elections, due in mid-September 2014, might have an impact on the composition of the leadership of the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs.

The Barents Euro-Arctic Council informed aboutthe meeting of its Joint Working Group on Healthand Related Social Issues (JWGHS) co-chaired by Sweden and Murmansk region and held in April 2014 in Murmansk. It further informed about the three programmes coordinated and supervised by the JWGHS (tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and youth at risk), all of them successful and with a high participation rate. The Finnish Chairmanship of the BEAC and a representative from the Barents International Secretariat also took part in the meeting, made presentations and commended the JWGHS for its successful work. The next meeting of the group would be held in the fall, most likely in Sweden.Norwaythanked Murmansk and Sweden for organizing a successful meeting, as well as for inviting the ASA EG to hold its meeting in a parallel session with the JWGHS. It was already the third time theASA EG had a meeting in parallel with the JWGHS, which had proved to be a very fruitful approach and in line with priorities of both the ND and the BEAC cooperationof more cross-structural collaboration.

The Secretariat drew the attention of the Meeting to the following paragraph of the Chair’s Conclusions from the 4th Senior Officials Meeting of the Renewed Northern Dimension: “The Senior Officials acknowledged the work between the EU and Russia on defining common priority themes for cooperation in the Baltic Sea region based on identifying objectives of mutual interest. They asked the ND structures to elaborate how theirpotential can be used in support of these common priorities” and suggested that the proposed response from the NDPHS could be discussed and developed by the Strategy Working Group.

The Meeting took note of the presented information and requested the SWG to consider how the NDPHS’ potential can be used in support of thecommon EU-Russia priorities for cooperation in the Baltic Sea region and present a suggested NDPHS response to the CSR-level PAC 11.

5. Implementation of the NDPHS Strategy 2010-2013

5.1 Revised draft report on the implementation of the NDPHS Strategy 2010-2013

With reference to the revised draft report on the implementation of the NDPHS Strategy 2010-2013 (submitted as document CSR 23/5.1/1), the ASA EG, the HIV/AIDS&AI EG, the NCD EG and the PPHS EGbriefly presented their main achievements in 2010-2013, as well as those of theADPY TG, the AMR TG and the OSH TG.

The ASA EG ITA noted that the draft final report incorrectly stated the status of the Operational Target 6.1, which was related to the prison health issues. According the report, it was stated as “partly completed”, while all planned activities were implemented. Due to that fact he requested to change the status of this target as “completed”.

The ASA EG ITAalso mentioned that the final report from the ADPY TG, was missing information on the implementation of the project “Setting the Scene –Indicators for Alcohol and Drug Prevention Policy”. This project was financially supported by the Norwegian Ministry of Health and Care Services. He requested to make necessary additions to the final report.

The PPHS EG Chair mentioned that since the July 2012, the PPHS EG was lacking the ITA for the Prison issues, thus the activity had been very low and there were no results related to the prison health topic to report on. She also stated that she was not optimistic in continuation of the work in that direction.

Norwayand Latvia, answering to the report of the PPHS EGChair,stated that, according to their prison health representatives in the PPHS EG, the discussions in the group were very useful.

Germany stressed the importance of sustainability of projects. Further, it stated that Germany would prefer having a separate prison health group, since its prison health experts had voiced concerns regarding the difficulties to discuss prison health issues within the PPHS EG operating in thecurrent format.

Russia expressed its support to prison health and AMR groups, but stressed that it would be premature to specify the exact form of support. It further noted that prison health and primary health topics were too diverse to be dealt with in the same group and Russia would support continuation of a prison health group either as an independent group or in combination with another topic, such as HIV and TB.

With regard to the statement that there was no prison health ITA for the PPHS EG as of July 2012, Norway explained that, when the PHC EG and the PH EG were merged in 2010, Norway had agreed that it would, for some time, support the Lead Partner Sweden with a part-timeprison health ITA, with the understanding that later on the remaining ITA of the PPHS EG would be covering both primary health and prison health issues.

Further, with regard to the chapter in the ADPY, it requested to include alsothe 63000 EURO support received from Norway.

With regard to statements on missing or incorrect information in the draft final report the Secretariat requested the groups concerned to provide the missing or correct information so that the Secretariat could correct the report, as necessary.

Finland noted that the report provided a much clearer picture regarding the work of the groups than previous reports, however, it suggested that when efforts were not completed or were partly completed, it would be very helpful to have a comment in the box “Further action required, obstacles, comments” includedexplaining the reasons and what the future plans would be.

Norway supported the proposal made by Finland and further suggested that in future reports it would be useful to include information on groups’ cooperation and relations with other regional actors.

The WHO Europeexpressed its content with the ongoing cooperation with NDPHS expert level structures, as well as planned revitalization of the AMR TG. Further, with regard to the draft final report and, more specifically, its OSH section (pages 41 and 42) it suggested replacing “Healthy working conditions” with “healthy workplace.”

Estonia thanked all Expert and Task Groups for their work over the last four years and proposedthat the Secretariat would prepare a short summary of the groups’ work in an easyto understand way and present it to the next ministerial-level PAC. In response to a question posed by Latvia, Estonia explained that it did not insist on any particular format or submission to the PAC, however, it would be very important to make the Expert and Task Groups’ work more visible by demonstrating in a brief and easy to understand format most important results of the groups’ four years work.

The SWG Chair, the NCD EG Chair,Lithuania,Russia and the ASA EG ITAexpressed their support to the proposal.

The PPHS EG Chair suggested that,instead of listening to the groups’ reports on activities, the CSR meetings could be used for discussing strategic issues arising from the reports and proposed that the SWG could look into the issue of how the time allocated for discussing the groups’ results is being used during the CSR meetings.

In response to a question posed by Norway, the NCD EG ITA provided additional information about the Healthier People II project. He explained that the Healthier People I project was running for two years in 2012-2013 and the project’s final seminar was held in January 2014. The Healthier People II project application (an extension of the Healthier People I project) had been submitted to the NCM for funding and, even though no formal decision had been made yet, the signals were positive. The Healthier People II project submitted to the NCM would be a relatively small one-year project with EUR 30,000 budget. Further, the NCD EG Chair informed that, regardless of the NCM decision, St. Petersburg had decided to extend the project to three other regions in St. Petersburg.

The Meeting consideredthe presented report and information and:

• Thanked NDPHS Expert and Task Groups for their good work in 2010-2013;
• Agreed to revise the draft report on the implementation of the NDPHS Strategy 2010-2013 as requested by Finland, Norway, the WHO Europe and the ASA EG ITA, invited those concerned to provide the Secretariat with inputs, and requestedthe Secretariat to send the revised report to the CSR for approval together with the draft meeting minutes (cf. Annex 1);
• Requestedall Expert and Task Groups to produce short summaries on their achievements in 2010-2013, andrequested the Secretariat to compile the inputs, disseminate the compiled summary to the CSR and post it on the NDPHS website;
• Agreed to include information on groups’ cooperation and relations with other regional actors in future reports.

5.2 Draft NDPHS Progress Report for 2013

The Secretariatpresented general issues arising from the NDPHS Progress Report for 2013 (submitted as document CSR 23/5.2/1).

The PPHS EG ITA requested to include the results of the primary health component of the ADPY project (in particular, the ADPY cooperation model), and offered to provide the wording for inclusion in the report.

The Meeting consideredthe presented report and information and:

• Approved the presented NDPHS Progress Report for 2013 with the addition requested by the PPHS EG ITA;
• Mandated the Secretariat to post the report on the NDPHS website.

5.3 Other matters

The Secretariat informed that a new EU funding opportunity in the amount of maximum EUR 300,000, channeled through the EU Delegation to Russia, had become available, and concept notes developed by the interested EGs and TG had been forwardedby the NDPHS Secretariat to the EU Delegation. However, the response from the EU Delegation was that “unfortunately, none of the proposed project concepts reflects necessary EU interest for funding them at the moment” and “therefore, we expect the NDPHS to come up with another proposal, taking into account main concern in the region on communicable diseases, especially its "antimicrobial resistance" (AMR) component. Considering our tight contracting-time (before 31/07/2014) we would appreciate very much if you submit a new proposal by 12 May 2014”.Consequently, the interested Expert and Task Groups had been requested to submit new concept notes. The Secretariat also noted that it would be available to provide some support to the group offered to submit a fully-fledgedproject proposal to the EU Delegation.

Russiarequested the Secretariat to share the submitted concept notes with the CSR.

The NCD EG Chair expressed his frustration with the process of developing and submitting the concept notes to the EU Delegation and stressed that in the future it would be very important to know exact requirements of the donor before embarking on preparing the concept notes.

The Meeting took note of the provided information and requested the Secretariat to share the submitted concept notes with the CSR.

6. Development of the NDPHS Strategy 2014-2020

6.1 Information on the status quo and the progress made

The SWG Chairreportedon the background, progress and the state of play in the process of the development of the NDPHS Strategy 2014-2020 and its Action Plan, as well as planned further steps. In particular, she informed about the two SWG meetings, held in December 2013 and March 2014,and the results of the work thus far. She also informed about the extraordinary SWG meeting held in the morning before the CSR meeting, to discuss issues related to financing of the employment of the SWG consultant.