After action review
An After Action Review (AAR) is a qualitative review of actions taken to respond to a public health event or following a project or a public health intervention as a means of identifying and documenting best practices demonstrated and challenges encountered during the response to the event or the implementation of the project. The AAR process involves a structured facilitated discussion or experience sharing among responders to critically and systematically review what was in place before the response and could have been used, what actually happened during the response, what went well, what went less well, why events occurred as they did, and how to improve. It is an important management tool for continuous performance improvement and learning.
More specifically, the objectives of an AAR are:
- to review actions undertaken at each phase of managing a public health event, to identify what worked well, what worked less well and why;
- to demonstrate the functionality of national capacities in preparing for, detecting and responding to a public health event;
- to identify the corrective actions needed to institutionalize any lessons emerging from the management of public health events;
- to address the challenges made evident through the AAR.
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Key publications
Global framework to accelerate action on avian influenza
Global leprosy (Hansen Disease) update, 2025: Strengtheninga person-centered approach is integral to...
For this update, reporting was done for the calendar year 2025, although a few countries reported for a different 12-month period (e.g. India reported...
WHO global research priorities and agenda for traditional, complementary and integrative medicine 2025–2034
Traditional, complementary and integrative medicine (TCIM) is used by billions of people worldwide, yet receives less than 1% of global health research...
AAR online training
This course has been designed to introduce the learners to the knowledge and skills needed for a successful management and facilitation of an After Action Review (AAR) using a working group format.
The learning objectives are the following:
- Explain the context and the purpose of an AAR
- Describe the general of the AAR process (by using the working group format)
- Describe the general of the AAR process (by using the working group format).
- Distinguish roles and responsibilities of facilitators in the AAR process and describe the techniques for participatory facilitation.
- Indicate the resources available for conducting an AAR and know where to find them.
- Expected audience: IHR NFPs, WHO staff, Health professionals and partners, any person interested in reviewing any emergency response.
