IN OFFICIAL RELATIONS WITH THE WHO

WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION

ISPO Ad Hoc Committee for Non-Industrial Countries

In the past year ISPO has formed an Ad Hoc Committee with a focus on non-industrial countries. The Chair of this committee is Heinz Trebbin who currently is the Director of the GTZ Project in El Salvador and current member of the ISPO Education and Publications Committees. The committee brings together a number of individuals from around the world who have varying experiences in non-industrial countries and who also bring unique and important resources to the committee. A mission statement for the committee was drafted to give the committee some guidelines to develop the initial activities that the committee will try to initiate. The mission statement and initial activities are described below: MISSION STATEMENT The Ad Hoc Committee aims to assist at improving the quality, availability and sustainability of P and O services in non-industrial countries through the exchange of information and the development of tools in service provision, project guidelines, technology update and training. ACTIVITIES The activities of this committee will take into account the conclusions and recommendations of the various ISPO consensus conferences. This committee will be responsible to harmonize the activities of the existing technical working groups and make recommendations to the ISPO board for approval. The activities that have been initially identified by the committee are listed in the next column along with the committees initial thoughts on what kind of content should go along with each activity. ACTIVITY 1 - Service Provision - provide checklists to evaluate the quality of P and O devices

- identify self help and user groups - to help develop a strategy to promote public awareness of the availability of prosthetic and orthotic services - to give access to patient registration and follow-up systems ACTIVITY 2 - Project Guidelines - to advise and promote the use of the existing protocols and update them over time - these documents could include the following areas: · assessment and planning · project monitoring and evaluation · cost calculation ACTIVITY 3 - Technology Update - this activity will make information available on the following: · technical guidelines and standards · appropriate technology · advancements of technology · research and evaluation. ACTIVITY 4 - Training - this activity will promote the existing WHO/ISPO guidelines for training, provide information on existing curriculums of training institutes and publish information on the development in teaching needs, methods and materials ACTIVITY 5 - Exchange of Information - develop a website making the information the committee produces or gathers, easily available and accessible For those of you who would like further information on the committee's activities or would be interested in helping with the committee's work, please contact Heinz Trebbin by way of the following e-mail address - isrigtz@es.com.sv