Sustained Funding for Health Systems Strengthening Critical for Effective Disease Control
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London, 16 September: If disease control interventions in developing countries are to be effective and sustainable, it is imperative for international donors to keep focusing on providing support for strengthening health systems. In this way, using malaria as the entry point, multiple childhood diseases can be targeted and reduced.
This is the message Malaria Consortium and Irish Aid had for the international development community at an expert panel discussion on Health Systems Strengthening (HSS) in London yesterday.
Donors, academics and experts in HSS were invited by Malaria Consortium and Irish Aid to look at the outcomes of a seven year multi-country HSS Irish Aid-funded project, Clover, and to explore innovations and debate the challenges ahead for HSS. “We’re all very proud of Clover’s success and this is something that we need to share with the wider HSS community, because we need to get the evidence to do more,” said Dr. Diarmuid McClean, Development Specialist for Irish Aid.
The first session, chaired by Julian Lob-Levyt, CEO of GAVI, focused on Innovations in Health Systems and some of the positive outcomes of Clover, as well as a UK Department for International Development/ Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (NORAD) funded HSS programme in Nigeria (PRRINN-MNCH).
Clover is a recently completed seven-year project that, using malaria as an entry point, aimed to identify and implement solutions to the constraints that impeded delivery of health services, focusing on countries where there are numerous bottlenecks: Ethiopia, Mozambique, Tanzania/Zanzibar, Uganda and Zambia. PRRINN-MNCH worked with federal, state and local governments in Nigeria to improve the quality and availability of health services across four states, focusing on strengthening primary health care for maternal and newborn health care.
Key to the success of Clover had been the pragmatic, flexible, context-sensitive and – crucially - collaborative approach which has underpinned the project: “Harmonisation and coordination of partner activities at sub-national level has been vital to Clover’s success,” explained Dr James Tibenderana, Director of Case Management.
Dr. Douglas Hamilton, Senior HIV/AIDS Advisor of Irish Aid, further emphasised the achievements of the project, saying he was “proud of the great results that Malaria Consortium has produced.”
The panel then moved on to discuss the recurring challenges being faced in HSS. In a session chaired by Dr Rob Newman, Director of the WHO Global Malaria Programme, issues discussed ranged from commodity security to funding interruption acting as impediments to sustained support for a strengthened health infrastructure.
George Shakarshvilli, Senior Health Systems Advisor at the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund), spoke of the false dichotomy of vertical and horizontal support and the damage that this can do in the long term to fledgling national health systems.
Clover Coordinator, Dr. Betty Mpeka of Malaria Consortium elaborated on challenges at district level, which included the issue of compliance with recommendations that had been made upon the basis of extensive research. This research, having been painstakingly collected, is often lost by the time it reaches district level and yet it is fundamental that best practise be shared and implemented as widely as possible in order for gains to be made.
Finally, delegates spoke of the future of HSS in the new, tightened funding environment. Dr Newman emphasised the imperative for multi-lateral donors such as the Global Fund, GAVI, the World Bank, and bi-lateral donors, to keep providing sectoral budget support: “The Malaria Consortium model is truly wonderful, and it is a model that should be pursued into the future so we can continue to make meaningful inroads on malaria and other diseases”.
Dr. McClean said that he was cheered by the successes of the two projects: “We can only push for more funding to go towards projects like Clover and PRRINN-MNCH.”
For more information, please contact Diana Thomas: [email protected]
CLOVER DOCUMENTS:
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Uganda
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Success Stories from the Clover Project