It’s a late Saturday evening. I’ve just landed at Bole International Airport, Ethiopia’s major airport based in Addis Ababa and can already smell the spices in the air. The SFD internship marks my seventh journey to Ethiopia – a beautiful country I’ve come to love and appreciate; rich with culture, unique and delicious cuisine and genuine people eager to greet and welcome you.

Over the past five years, I’ve witnessed numerous changes, both, in what an old colleague refers to as Ethiopia’s hardware (its infrastructure) and its software (its society). Numerous roads, bridges, buildings, cafes, and gyms have emerged, partly due to greater investment from diaspora now returning to advance Ethiopia’s growth. With such changes, I’ve also noticed an increase in westernization. The country hasn’t been the same since the emergence of Ethiopian Idol.

Changes of course have also occurred across the health system. On a policy level, the Ethiopian government, particularly in the area of health system strengthening, has been the first African country to implement harmonization of health policies throughout the country. This is of particular interest to me as I engage in my doctoral research focused on health planning and accountability at the district level in three regions of the country.

In order to augment my thesis work and strengthen collaboration, I’ve been based at the Oromia Regional Health Bureau (ORHB) for the duration of my SFD internship. The Oromia region is the largest region of nine and will be one of the three regions in which I’ll be conducting my study.

Over the past month and a half, the internship has been an extremely interesting opportunity to learn about the implementation and challenges of the health policy harmonization as well as gain deeper insight into newly developed district planning tool called Woreda-Based Health Sector Planning (WBHSP) (Woreda means district in Amharic – Ethiopia’s national language). As part of the process of WBHSP, the entire health system has undergone a restructuring under a process called Business Process Reengineering (BPR). Briefly, BPR has entailed a remodeling of the health system with a focus on improving the efficiency and quality of policy, planning and monitoring and evaluation.

While based at the ORHB, I initially participated in proposal evaluation of NGO proposals being submitted for review by the ORHB. NGOs play an extremely large and important role in Ethiopia’s health system. While the Regional Health Bureau outlines its annual targets and objectives each year for health provision, numerous NGOs step-in to fill large gaps in health service and program provision. Key areas include family planning and reproductive health, HIV/AIDS, hygiene and sanitation, malaria and TB.

As the planning for the next year commences, I’ve been able to also attend planning meetings and workshops discussing the collection of baseline data needed for planning and the improvement of data management strategies; particulalry in relation to the WBHSP.

Of course, my time here hasn’t been consumed only by work. I’ve also been indulging in Ethiopia’s rich culture and delicious cuisine. Numerous traditional restaurants often offer a dance show of local dancing (« iskista ») while enjoying the injera. Plus, you can’t come to Ethiopia without possibly over indulging in the amazing coffee with milk (buna ba whatit) or caramel macchiatos made at Kaldi’s Café – a major café chain with an odd resemblance to the Starbucks logo.

With the next month ahead, I’m hoping to learn more about the district based planning tool (the WBHSP) and travel to some more districts to capture how these planning tools are improving the decision-making process for health services at the district level (a level traditionally characterized as having a limited capacity).

Categorie : Éthiopie, Durant le stage // Faire un commentaire »