Events
Macroeconomics and Health mission in Ethiopia, November 2002
The WHO and the CMH Columbia University planning mission to Ethiopia took place in Addis Ababa in November 18, 2002. During the four-day meeting representatives from the Ministries of Health, Finance and Economic Development, Capacity Building, Regional Health Bureau and Chamber of Commerce were presented with the CMH findings. The meeting was attended by the Minister of Health, Dr Kebede Tadesse, the State Minister, Ato Mekonned Manyanzewal and many Directors and Heads from these ministries. The mission’s purpose was to identify ways in which the CMH process, implemented jointly by the Government of Ethiopia, WHO, Columbia University and other partners could help accelerate current progress on improving the health of the Ethiopian people. The mission was able to identify several potential areas of activity that could serve this purpose.
The proposed CMH process would be: to support advocacy with government officials, parliamentarians, international agencies and a broad spectrum of Ethiopians regarding the importance of health investments for Ethiopia’s social and economic development. It would also support capacity building for those infrastructural levels that are key to the success of delivering health services under the country’s newly decentralized structures. And the CMH process would support applied research seen to be of value to public policy in health.
Given the successful institutional coordination being conducted in the Health Sector Development Programme (HSDP), the authorities welcomed the suggestion that a Macroeconomics and Health technical group could be established under the Central Joint Steering Committee to convene the broad representation necessary to implement the activities with the support of the CMH process. The proposed CMH technical group made up of a diverse range of partners from sectors will work together to support the PRSP and decentralization process within the health sector and will start the CMH follow-up by focusing on three core activities: advocacy, capacity building and providing institutional support.