The Partnership Updates
February 2007
Country Support Work
Country Action in 2007: Mamadou Diallo Joins The Partnership as Senior Adviser
With the recent arrival of the Dr Mamadou Hady Diallo (diallohadym@who.int) as The Partnership's Senior Adviser for Country Support (see biography below), work is moving forward on implementation of the Gates Foundation grant to strengthen the rapid scale-up of maternal, newborn and child health in Africa
Mozambique
Discussions took place between the Mozambican Ministry of Health (MoH) and partners during February 2007 on several matters, including finalizing Mozambique's Child Health Strategy to support the implementation of the National Child Health Policy; costing of the national Road Map for Maternal Mortality Reduction and the Child Health Strategy; the terms of the local rapid assessment to be undertaken prior the implementation of the Partnership grant; and a "pre-SWAP" meeting. Participants in these meetings included officials from Mozambique's MoH, Dr. Diallo of The Partnership, and officials from WHO headquarters and African Regional Office (AFRO), UNICEF and UNFPA.
The meetings resulted in identifying next steps for elaborating the implementation plan of the Partnership grant, as well as discussing mechanisms of funding and immediate needs for technical assistance. Partners agreed to provide the technical assistance needed for thecosting exercise as well as the local rapid assessment. As well, a national coordinationmechanism was agreed using the existing technical committee under the SWAP.
Malawi
A core maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) team has been formed, led by Malawi's MoH, and including staff from the Ministry, The Partnership and local partners. Working sessions with the MoH technical units and partners were held, and the core team also participated in the Saving Newborn Lives workshop. It was agreed that MNCH should be coordinated nationally through a task force made up of representatives from existing national technical committees on sexual and reproductive health and child health. The core team in Malawi has now identified existing gaps in MNCH; key interventions for scaling-up MNCH; next steps for elaborating the in-country implementation plan; and priorities for technical assistance, including strengthening managerial capacity at national, zone and district levels to ensure smooth implementation of the national plan.
Burkina Faso
The MoH organized a workshop on MNCH in Ouagadougou from 26 February to 2 March. More than 60 participants attended, including national and sub-national MNCH programme managers, national partners and academics. They were joined by Dr. Diallo of The Partnership, as well as regional and HQ staff from WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA and the World Bank. The main outcomes of the workshop were
- a common understanding on the scope, content and implications of the Partnership grant proposal was reached;
- the current status of MNCH programme efforts, health system strengths and weaknesses, challenges and opportunities for rapid scale-up of effective interventions were reviewed;
- ways for strengthening coordination across programmes and partners were agreed upon;
- the development of the implementation plan was initiated; o the next steps were agreed and technical support needs were identified.
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