The World Health Organisation (WHO) Regional Office for the Western Pacific will award a regional country that has implemented or proposes the best practice towards improving the health of the Pacific people.

WHO Western Pacific Region Technical Officer Saula Volavola said the Healthy Islands award recognises innovative projects in the Pacific that contribute towards improving the health and quality of life of Pacific people.

Healthy Islands is a model envisioned in 1995 at the first meeting of the Ministers of Health for the Pacific Island Countries on Yanuca Island, Fiji.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) Regional Office for the Western Pacific says that vision has served as a unifying theme for health protection and health promotion in the Pacific.

It reflects the comprehensive and integrated approach to health that is a hallmark of the WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific.

It has laid the foundation for meetings of the Ministers of Health that have followed every year.

Those meetings and the ongoing work of health professionals, government ministries and donor partners have helped establish the Healthy Islands movement as a major public health force in the Pacific.

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