How can we strengthen the Joint External Evaluation?

### Summary box\n\nThe COVID-19 pandemic has raised questions about the utility of the International Health Regulations (IHR) and the effectiveness of the Joint External Evaluation (JEE) for strengthening global health security.1 If we are to embark on further revisions to the JEE for measuring global health security, we need to re-examine its purpose and limitations.\n\nThe JEE established four important norms:2 (1) normalising a transparent process to examine and report on a country’s health security strengths and weaknesses; (2) setting standard definitions and scoring a country’s capacities in 19 technical areas; (3) involving governments and donors in strengthening those capacities across sectors and (4) prioritising opportunities for capacity development based on existing gaps. Over 110 countries,3 more than half of all WHO Member States have participated in the …