The first day at the ER-WCPT General Meeting in Limassol, Cyprus was a day of meeting, networking and collaboration. The president of the ER-WCPT Sarah Bazin could say welcome to 36 of 39 Member Organisations (Physiotherapy Associations) which are participating during this meeting, from Thursday to Saturday.   

There was a presentation from the Executive Board of WCPT, where Emma Stokes and John Xerri de Caro had a discussion together with the participants about the WCPT strategic plan. Transparency and change are two important things in a strategic work. 

The suggestion from the Swedish Association that there should be a short standing up break every 20 minutes was accepted and followed up the whole conference day, which made me happy. I have earlier been blogging about ”I have a dream, there will be no more long sitting days”.

 
We also were active in the discussion during the day from the Swedish team where Cecilia Winberg, Charlotte Häger, Birgit Rösblad, Charlotte Chruzander and myself are participating.  

  
Concerning the ER-WCPT strategic plan, which was adopted, we made a special statement:

”The Swedish association, would on behalf of all the Nordic countries, like to congratulate the ER -WCPT working groups for the work with the Strategic plan for the upcoming years.We realize that the ER – WCPTs strategic plan is to be aligned to the strategic plan of WCPT. At this point of time we do not know how this process of alignment will be carried out. It seems reasonable for us not to put so much effort into the plan at this stage. It might be wise to revise it when the WCPT plan has been adopted. 

There are however two aspects for the future work on the ER- WCPT strategic plan that we would like to point out: 

• We believe that a strategic plan should be a general plan, stating the overall visions and missions. It should be visionary, clear and short. The strategic plan should be complimented with an action plan that sets out on how to achieve the goals.

 • It is important that we as an organization and as a profession are involved in the global and European agenda on health. We need to show that we can make a difference and that we can contribute to the goals on health that the global and European society has formulated. Our engagement in this should be visible in the strategic plan.

One most important global agenda has recently been developed and adopted by The United Nations. In The 2030 agenda for sustainable development 17 goals have been defined. These goals cover a wide range of areas and one goal, number 3 is addressing health and how it can be improved.

Goal Number 3 reads: “Ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages.” A number of sub goals and targets have been defined. We as physiotherapist can contribute to the fulfillment of many of these goals and their targets, and in particular to goal number 3:4 which reads: “By 2030, Reduce by one third premature mortality from non- communicable diseases through prevention and treatment and promote mental health and well-being.”

 We, on behalf of the Nordic associations, support that the Strategic plan will be adopted for the next period 2016-2018 under the condition that the before mentioned aspects are carefully considered and incorporated into the plan during the upcoming mandate period.

This global perspective should also be put into relevant contexts that will be reflected in the activities. We emphasize the importance of transparency and continuous development of the Strategic Plan in close alignment with the development of the Strategic plan of the WCPT.”