The World Local Production Forum: Enhancing access to medicines and other health technologies (WLPF) is a WHO initiative that provides Member States and the global community with a regular platform to shape strategies, galvanize collective action, and foster partnerships on sustainable local production to improve timely and equitable access to quality assured health products.

Over the past two decades, there has been an increasing emphasis on the importance of local production and related technology transfer in the context of promoting equitable access to medicines and other health technologies. Progress has been made in promoting local production and improving access; however, existing challenges remain, and new challenges have emerged. As a result, The significance of local production and technology transfer in ensuring equitable access to medicines and health technologies has gained increasing recognition. The WLPF serves as a platform to generate actionable recommendations and outcomes that support local production, with a focus on improving access to quality, safe, and effective health products, and strengthening global, regional, and national health security. It aims to emphasize the importance of health product production as a vital long-term infrastructure and promote the implementation of the resolution WHA74.6 and the first interagency statement on promoting local production which emphasize and recognize the need to strengthening local production of medicines and other health technologies to improve access. 

The Local Production and Assistance (LPA) Unit serves as the WLPF Secretariat. The unprecedented global health crisis caused by the COVID 19 Pandemic has underscored the insufficiency of global manufacturing capacity in meeting the overwhelming health needs worldwide. In response, there is growing recognition of the need to geo-diversify health product manufacturing to enhance local and regional production capacity to address global health challenges while ensuring equitable access to lifesaving essential health products.

Building upon the success of the inaugural WLPF, organized virtually from 21-25 June 2021, the second edition of the WLPF is scheduled to take place from 6 to 8 November 2023. This significant event will be hosted at the prestigious World Forum in The Hague, The Netherlands. As the WLPF Secretariat, the LPA Unit has been actively collaborating with the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the hosting country, to ensure the success of this important forum.

The second WLPF aims to provide a global platform to discuss key challenges in promoting local production and technology transfer and explore opportunities and mechanisms to tackle the bottlenecks and promote sustainable local production capacity to improve access to quality, safe and effective health products and technologies. This forum will continue to facilitate engaging discussions, share best practices, and generate actionable recommendations that contribute to strengthening local production capacities and improving global health security.