PAHO/WHO Collaborating Centre Aligns Nursing Work Plans With the Sustainable Development Goals
A historical review of a PAHO/WHO Collaborating Centre shows how a nursing-focused institution translated its mission into the language of the Sustainable Development Goals across three redesignation cycles. The analysis tracked work plans from 2010, 2014 and 2018 and found a pattern that was concentrated, deliberate and tightly linked to global health priorities. In every cycle, the center’s activities clustered most strongly around SDG 3 and SDG 4, the goals most directly tied to health and education.
The study matters because it documents more than administrative compliance. It shows how a collaborating center can function as a practical bridge between global policy and the daily work of nursing research, training, knowledge transfer and service transformation. In this case, the work plans were not broad declarations. They were mapped to concrete themes that included knowledge production, capacity building, leadership in dissemination, and the transfer of research results into health services.
One line in the data stands out immediately: the center’s mission was repeatedly anchored in health and education, with only later work plans extending into economic and partnership-related goals.
A Three-Cycle Review of Work Plans and SDG Mapping
The study used a descriptive and historical-documentary design and was carried out between November and December 2023. Primary sources came from the collaborating center’s own reports, which were analyzed qualitatively and then categorized according to structures identified during information organization. The approach was retrospective, but the question it asked was contemporary: how closely did the center’s activities align with the SDGs during redesignation processes in 2010, 2014 and 2018?
The answer was consistent across the timeline. In the 2010 work plan, and again in 2014 and 2018, the dominant alignment was with SDG 3 and SDG 4. Health and education remained the core axis of the center’s activity, reflecting the role that nursing institutions often play in strengthening systems through workforce development, evidence generation and professional training. The 2014 work plan expanded to include SDG 12, while the 2018 plan included SDG 8 and SDG 17.
Those additions are revealing. SDG 12 links to responsible production and consumption, a broader systems-level concern that can intersect with institutional stewardship and the use of resources in health settings. SDG 8 and SDG 17 bring in decent work and partnerships, both of which fit naturally with a center engaged in professional development, network building and cross-institutional collaboration.
Nursing Research as a Mechanism for Health System Change
The report frames the collaborating center’s mission in terms that go beyond academic output. Knowledge production, capacity building and dissemination are presented as operational tools for change, not as abstract scholarly ideals. In nursing, that distinction is important. Research can influence care only when it is translated into practice, and practice change depends on trained professionals, supportive networks and institutional channels that move evidence into services.
This is where the center’s work aligns with the broader public health meaning of the SDGs. SDG 3 captures the direct health mandate, but SDG 4 matters just as much because educational strength determines whether a health workforce can absorb and apply new evidence. Nursing research often sits at that intersection: it generates data, shapes competencies and supports the kind of leadership needed to embed evidence in routine care.
The center’s repeated emphasis on dissemination and transfer of research results suggests a model in which the collaborating center acts as a converter of evidence into institutional action. In practical terms, that means studies do not end at publication. They are intended to influence services, strengthen nursing networks and contribute to health service transformation.
Expansion Beyond Health and Education in Later Redesignations
The shift in the 2014 and 2018 plans shows widening institutional scope without losing the original mission. By including SDG 12 in 2014 and SDG 8 and SDG 17 in 2018, the center appears to have incorporated a broader view of how nursing research operates inside health systems and across partnerships.
Partnerships are especially relevant for a collaborating center. A network-based model depends on shared goals, institutional trust and sustained exchange of expertise. SDG 17 gives formal expression to that reality, since collaboration is not an accessory to the mission; it is the mechanism through which the mission scales. Likewise, decent work under SDG 8 has direct relevance to nursing, a profession in which workforce conditions, leadership opportunities and professional recognition shape both retention and quality of care.
The later appearance of these goals does not indicate a change in direction so much as a broader articulation of what the center was already doing. Nursing leadership, knowledge diffusion and service improvement naturally extend into labor conditions, intersectoral collaboration and institutional stewardship. The work plans reflect that evolution.
What the Findings Say About Collaborating Centers in Global Health
The most important contribution of this review is conceptual. It offers a way to understand a PAHO/WHO Collaborating Centre as more than a designation. The center functions as a strategic node where international priorities, research production and service needs converge. By aligning its plans with the SDGs, the center demonstrates that nursing institutions can operate as active participants in global development agendas, not merely as observers of them.
The review also shows how mission language can remain stable while operational priorities broaden. Across all three redesignation cycles, the center retained its focus on research development, education and dissemination. At the same time, the SDG mapping widened, suggesting that institutional maturity can bring a more complex understanding of impact. Health workforce development, knowledge transfer and partnership building are not separate activities; they are interdependent parts of the same clinical and academic ecosystem.
This is particularly relevant in nursing, where the pathway from evidence to bedside care is often mediated by education, organizational culture and professional leadership. A collaborating center that strengthens those links can influence care quality well beyond its own walls.
The study closes with a clear judgment: the center successfully fulfilled its mission in line with the SDGs through knowledge production, capacity building, leadership in dissemination and the transfer of research results to health services. The remaining question is not whether the model works, but how other collaborating centers will document, compare and operationalize similar alignments across different regional and institutional settings.