The "European Union Solidarity for Health Initiative in the Eastern Partnership countries" initiative is part of a common European response to the outbreak of COVID-19, which aims to address the short-term emergency needs, as well as the longer-term structural impacts with a special focus on the most vulnerable countries, with weak health systems. The initiative supports the partner countries in their fight against the virus and helps them to address better the needs of the most vulnerable people.

The overall objective of this initiative is to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 in the Eastern Partner countries, thus contributing to their longer-term social and economic resilience.
Specifically, it aims to:
- Provide an effective, rapid and coordinated response to COVID-19.
- Strengthen the national capacity to effectively prevent, prepare for, detect and respond to public health emergencies.

The initiative will be implemented in three phases:
- Short-term response (3-4 months) the initiative will start by responding to most immediate needs and support Eastern Partner countries in creating surge capacity to respond to the COVID outbreak. This includes supporting the readiness of care facilities and health workers through delivery of key equipment and medical devices and training, as well as support in national coordination of the COVID response and risk communication to the population.
- Medium-term response (8-9 months) the initiative will continue to support partner countries in strengthening health systems to respond to COVID-19 by maintained delivery of key equipment and medical devices, as well as capacity building support to health institutions.
- Longer-term response and resilience (12 months) based on the experience during the pandemic, the programme will assess the ability of the partner countries to ensure health services and emergency response and develop for each country a national action plan for emergency preparedness.