Southern Africa at work on building stronger health information systems
25 October 2010
Meeting together this week in Windhoek, Namibia, nine Southern African countries are developing strategies to strengthen their health information systems across ministries. The United States Agency for International Development planned and is implementing The Southern Africa Leadership Forum on Health Information Systems (25-29 October), along with other partners such as the Health Metrics Network. This follows the first such regional forum held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia this past August. The Namibia Ministry of Information and Communication media release says, "...health care can be vastly improved by strengthening the information systems that can support care" according to a story in The Southern Times. The Forum aims to strengthen and accelerate country-owned and country-led strategies for managing health information systems, and countries attending are developing national action plans.