The World Health Organization Country Office in South Africa organized the all staff peer review meeting on 14 December 2017 to cherish accomplishments of 2016-17 workplans, draw lessons from the challenges encountered and better execute the 2018-19 plans. After reviewing the output performance assessment the team revisited outputs which were partially achieved or not achieved. The office stands at 94% of the outputs achieved at the end of the biennium.

The administration-finance session generated discussions around compliance issues pertaining to procurement, travel, office vehicle, IT and recruitment. It was made clear that there will be no negotiation around office compliance and country support unit will reinforce the necessary rules, guidance and SOPs for all staff to follow.

The programme teams then presented their two-year work and highlighted WHO’s contributions in the improvement of the South African population health. They also brought forward challenges encountered in implementing the plans. There was a felt need that the office needs to focus on resource mobilization and results based reporting to achieve better results and report on them in the way to demonstrate WHO’s contributions to our stakeholders.

Finally, considering the challenges encountered with monitoring and reporting on programme budget implementation a new tool was introduced to the group and its application was demonstrated. It was agreed by the group to pilot the tool in the office and then review its operational feasibility and utility. The proceedings of the meeting was highly appreciated by the participants and action points were agreed upon.