WHO publications to be more actively translated into Russian - RF health minister

But because of financial difficulties information is often available only in English and French.

“We have decided to implement a joint project with the WHO Secretariat - ‘Increasing the number and improving quality of health publications in Russian,’” Skvortsova said, adding that “within the project framework the emphasis is placed on the expansion of the WHO Russian-language website, digitisation and placement in the WHO digital library of all Russian-language materials of the organisation, including the decisions and resolutions of the WHO Executive Board and the World Health Assembly.”

During two years of the project implementation, the minister said, “some 40 WHO publications in Russian will be issued in addition to the planned publications.” “Our goal is to provide access for all stakeholders and individuals to WHO publications in Russian. To this end, the creation of the distribution list, which currently includes more than 900 institutions and healthcare facilities in 15 countries, is underway,” Skvortsova said.

In her opinion this work is important because the organisation’s materials are in high demand. According to the minister, the WHO information in Russian “will facilitate the dissemination of advanced knowledge in the healthcare sphere” in countries where Russian is the state, official language or is just widely used by the population.

Director of the WHO Knowledge Management and Sharing Department Najeeb Al-Shorbaji also noted this aspect in his speech. He stressed the importance of such support, provided “beyond the WHO regular budget,” expressing gratitude to “Russia for promoting multilingualism of the organisation.”

The Russian delegation told Itar-Tass that the cost of the project that is planned for 2013-2014 is1.9 million US dollars.