The Institute for Health and Environment brings together the fields of health, the environment, sustainable development and active participation.
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Training, materials and mentoring for young people in WHO networks.
Tools and guidance for involving young people in programme work.
Case studies and recommendations for member states.
As a Collaborating Centre, our mission is to strengthen young people's capacity to participate in shaping health policies in a structured, informed and sustainable way. We support WHO in integrating the youth perspective into its technical work, and we document the experiences of member states so that good practices can be turned into useful recommendations for the future.
Each pillar operates at a different level of the system: with young people themselves, within WHO, and in member states. For each one, you can see what IZO takes on and what WHO contributes.
We prepare young people to take part in decision-making with confidence and a solid professional foundation. The programme builds on existing engagement mechanisms within WHO networks and turns them into a regular, repeatable training pathway.
Training programmes for WHO youth networks, curricula and learning materials, mentoring sessions and tools to prepare for engagement in policy processes. WHO uses them to strengthen the quality and credibility of youth participation in its consultations and policy dialogues.
WHO technical units increasingly want to involve young people in consultations, workshops, webinars and policy dialogues, but they need operational support and tools to make that participation meaningful rather than a formality.
Practical guidance and operational tools for youth participation, templates for consultations and workshops, and materials that help technical units build the youth perspective into programme design and implementation.
Through the Resolution WHA77.2, May 2024 The Seventy-seventh World Health Assembly adopted a resolution on social participation for universal health coverage, health and well-being. It commits member states to enabling people, communities and civil society to take part regularly and meaningfully in decisions about health, across the policy cycle and at all levels of the system. The resolution was initiated by a core group of countries led by Slovenia and Thailand. , member states themselves called for experiences of social participation to be collected and shared. We collect and analyse how countries actually involve young people, at different levels of the system and at different stages of the policy cycle.
Case reports, synthesis analyses of governance models and enabling factors, and policy briefs with recommendations. WHO uses them in developing guidance and in supporting member states to implement the WHA77 resolution.
The programme is built in stages. First the methodology and tools are developed, then they are tested in practice, and in the final year they are refined and evaluated based on experience.
Slovenia is the first country to host a collaborating centre for youth participation in health governance — international recognition of the work of the Institute for Health and Environment and its partner organisations, such as the International Youth Health Organization, Brez izgovora Slovenija (No Excuse Slovenia) and other organisations and institutions that promote youth engagement.
The tools and approaches developed within the centre are first tested here in Slovenia, strengthening the capacity of local stakeholders and improving their involvement in national health policies. In this way, Slovenia is becoming a reference point of good practice for other WHO member states.
Youth participation in health is not a courtesy. It is a precondition for policies that will still work twenty years from now.
The Institute for Health and Environment brings together the fields of health, the environment, sustainable development and active participation.
Slovenska cesta 56, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
