Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine: Special Issue 50-4bokBW | Page 17

Strengthening health-related rehabilitation services at the national level
a stakeholder dialogue. Important documents and
guidelines are listed in green in Fig. 1.
MISSION PLAN
Government involvement and responsibilities
Terms of reference
To ensure the involvement and responsibility
of national governments, WHO and the RAT,
the mission was clarified by means of the terms
of reference (ToR) of the mission. In order to
ensure acceptance of the outcomes of the mis-
sion, a request from the government (usually,
the Ministry of Health (MOH)) was sought. This
request goes through the WHO country office
and then to WHO headquarters in Geneva, for
the attention of the coordinator of Blindness and
Deafness Prevention, Disability and Rehabilita-
tion. It might have made sense also to involve
the regional offices of the WHO. In future, this
pathway of requests might be modified to adapt
to the situation of a specific country (for example,
some steps might need to be omitted, or other
relevant stakeholders or bodies involved).
The guiding principles and goals of the mis-
sion are described in the ToR. The NHD RP was
developed in light of WHO GDAP objectives
and based on the recommendations of the World
Report on Disability (WRD) and the rights sets
out in the UNCRPD. The ToR defined the method
of data collection (situation analysis) and the pro-
gramme and partners for the country (including
government representatives, WHO experts and
relevant stakeholders (in particular, organizations
of people with disabilities).
Rehabilitation Advisory Team
The RAT includes experts with an appropriate
range of knowledge, both of WHO principles and
documents (such as the WRD, GDAP, and health
system building blocks) and, more generally, of
health systems and rehabilitation principles. The
experts should also have a least practical expe-
rience in clinical and social rehabilitation and ne-
gotiation skills. It is recommended that the experts
participating in the missions have an academic
background, with cultural and political knowledge
of the country and its health and social systems. It
is also helpful if one team member is fluent in the
Systematic pathway
The systematic pathway for the missions (Fig.
1) describes the working steps from the project
plan (prepared by the government and/or WHO
country office), the situation assessments in com-
parison with a benchmark, the outcome in terms
of identifying the gaps, and the process for deve-
loping recommendations and prioritizing them in
Government,
WHO country
office Rehabilitation
Advisory Team
Project plan Situation
Assessment
Stakeholder
workshop
Benchmark
Identification and
reporting of gaps
UNCRPD, WRD,
GDAP
Rehabilitation
Service
Assessment Tool
Site visit
319
Stakeholder
dialogue
Draft
recommenda-
tions
Recommenda-
tions, prioritisa-
tion & projects
Health Care
Service Matrix
WRD, GDAP
Health System
Building Blocks
Fig. 1. The process of developing National Disability, Health and Rehabilitation Plans. Red: actors; dark-blue:
activities; light-blue: document development; green: guiding documents (these may change if new tools become
available); blue-green: the site visit is carried out by the Rehabilitation Advisory Team (RAT) with support from the
World Health Organization (WHO) country office.
J Rehabil Med 50, 2018