IANPHI President's Letter
Dear IANPHI colleagues,
As IANPHI welcomes the arrival of 2026, we extend our warmest wishes to each and every one of you. It is important to reflect on the achievements of the past year, as well as to set out our ambitions for the year ahead in a period of continuing significant change in global health funding, infrastructure and services.
The December meeting of the IANPHI General Assembly closed 2025 by summarizing the year's achievements.
I want to start by thanking you, the IANPHI Members, for the work that you all do in supporting the public's health benefiting the diverse communities in your own countries and also to the global public health family. The last year has seen every country face and overcome significant public health challenges as our National Public Health Institutes (NPHIs) develop and strengthen, while new Institutes form and become IANPHI members. We are now 129 members in 107 countries and growing each year.
I would also like to thank the IANPHI Secretariat which has seen significant change. In 2025, after ten years of exemplary hosting the Secretariat moved from Santé Publique France in Paris to the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin. We wish to extend our heartfelt thanks to those who have contributed to IANPHI and have left the Secretariat during 2025 – Anne-Catherine Viso, Inès Ferrer, Sarah Fernandes, Silya Ferrat, Shrinidhi Nedumaram Lakshminarayanan and Yi Shang.
IANPHI continues to benefit from the excellent support of Sadaf Lynes, IANPHI Director of Collaborative Surveillance, Workforce and Health Emergencies, Professor Andrew Lee, IANPHI Technical Lead, Marie Le Roy, IANPHI Programme Manager, Raphaële Ismaïli, IANPHI Project Coordinator and Rosita Wigand, IANPHI Project Manager.
The IANPHI Secretariat has grown and strengthened this past year, with the appointment of a full-time IANPHI Secretary General, Professor Neil Squires, and the addition of new staff: Angela Fehr, as IANPHI Director of Programmes and Partnerships, Agathe Landel as IANPHI Event Manager, and Eloisa Montt Maray, as IANPHI Coordinator for Committees and Networks.
The U.S. Office of IANPHI has also been expertly led through significant change by its director, Ellen Whitney and continues to be a vital and active contributor to IANPHI's mission and goals.
The 2025 Annual Meeting in Maputo, Mozambique, and the Europe Network Meeting in Oslo, Norway, were two huge successes, with panel and group discussions on policy making, surveillance, ethics, the changing context and emerging threats as well as how NPHIs and international public health organizations can work together. A Memorandum of Understanding was also signed between IANPHI and the European Center for Disease Control in Maputo.
A number of our activities in 2025 were only possible because of the generous funding and support of external partners and IANPHI member contributions. We would like to offer our thanks to the Gates Foundation, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Public Health Agency of Canada, French Development Agency, European Environmental Agency, WHO Berlin Hub and the German Government; as well as to the IANPHI members, who have provided 'in-kind' support, through their valued technical input and expertise. Particular thanks go to FIOCRUZ for facilitating an influential discussion on the importance of NPHIs during its hosting of the 17th BRICS Summit in September 2025.
IANPHI is in the process of developing a revised five-year strategy for 2026 to 2030 building upon the prior strategy which ended in 2025. It will retain our primary mission and goals and equips IANPHI for the challenges of a changing world. We aim to launch the new strategy at the IANPHI Annual Meeting to be held in Dubai from April 8-10, 2026 and we look forward to seeing many of you there.
Two of our thematic committees were able to meet in person during 2025 thanks to funding from members and partners: the Social and Public Health Inequalities Thematic Committee met in June 2025 around the topic ‘How can NPHIs advance equity approaches to well-being to influence population health outcomes?’, and the Climate Change and Public Health Thematic Committee organized a workshop as a side event of the One Sustainable Health Forum in November 2025.
The IANPHI Secretariat will soon launch a call for an expression of interest to establish the Thematic Committee on the Essential Public Health Functions. This committee’s outputs will align with the first-time inclusion in the WHO 14th General Programme of Work of the goal to strengthen national institutional capacities for EPHFs to improve health systems resilience.
I encourage all of our members to participate in our thematic committees and in the Focal Point Network to ensure a broad regional and global representation in these important bodies of the Association.
We hope that 2026 will continue to be a fruitful year, strengthening IANPHI as a Network where Members can contribute to share their experiences, support each other as peers, develop capabilities, and advocate for the public's health nationally, regionally and worldwide.
In this you have my profound support and that of the Vice President, Professor Aamer Ikram. We are both honored to be given this opportunity.
With best wishes,
Duncan Selbie
IANPHI President