Responsibility and required period
10 In accordance with Executive Board resolution EB107.R8, public release of country-level estimates must be preceded by a consultation with WHO Member States (at least six weeks in advance of release). Consultations for estimates (and other data- and statistics-related issues) are intended to provide Member States with an opportunity to comment on methods and data sources, and where relevant, to provide updated data. This also promotes strengthening of their health information systems and estimation capacity.
20 The department or programme responsible for preparation of estimates is also responsible for carrying out the country consultations. The protocol for inviting Member States to participate in such consultations is outlined in section XXII.4.2; for further information, contact the Department of Data and Analytics (DNA) and the Department for Governing Bodies and External Relations (GBS).
Transparency
30 Treating data as a public good (see section XXII.1.1, paragraph 20) requires WHO to be transparent about how data are collected, used and shared, with a transparent audit trail. Complete metadata about data sets (see section XXII.X.X) should therefore be released along with the data sets themselves and together with any necessary explanatory notes to provide context on their origin, scope and limitations, application and (re)use, traceability and sharing. This requirement is guided by the WHO policies on the use and sharing of data routinely collected by WHO in Member States (see section XXII.6.1) and open access of WHO data (see section XXII.6.4) and is not only part of the processes of Member State consultations.
