World Bank's Africa Region Updates Progress on Stronger Health Systems and Unveils New Innovation

On January 20, 2010, the World Bank’s Africa Region reaffirmed its commitment to achieving better health results and innovation by helping its client countries to strengthen their health systems. With many countries off-track to achieve their health-related Millennium Development Goals, stronger national health systems are considered vital to reach their 2015 health targets. The World Bank's Vice President for Africa, Obiageli Ezekwesili (Oby) reminded her regional staff of the challenges in realizing this vision of vastly better health on the continent while reflecting on some of the early achievements of the Africa Region Health Systems for Outcomes (HSO) Program, as well as launching a new web-based innovation for knowledge sharing and capacity building in health systems .

With many countries experiencing problems in reaching their MDGs, the region's focus has turned to building up the quality and reach of country health systems which for the most part remain weak and unable to deliver health services to people who need them most. As a response to this issue, the HSO program, which is anchored in the Africa Region Technical Health (AFTHE) Unit of the Bank’s Africa Region Human Development Department (AFTHD) was launched a year ago to assist Sub-Saharan countries accelerate progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In line with the 2007 Health Nutrition and Population Strategy, the HSO Program focuses on five pillars of support where the Bank has a strong comparative advantage: Health Financing; Governance and Service Delivery; Human Resources for Health; Pharmaceuticals; and Infrastructure and ICT .

Since the inception of the HSO Program, two regional hubs--one in Dakar, Senegal, one in Nairobi, Kenya--have been established and staffed with high-level, experienced health systems specialists who, on demand, provide urgent technical and analytical assistance to governments in SSA. In line with the Paris Declaration, this assistance is provided in close collaboration with development partners through the Harmonization for Health in Africa Initiative (HHA) and the International Partnership+ (IHP+) Program.

While many countries in the Africa Region are still far from being on track to achieve the health-related MDGs, others have achieved impressive results through reforms and health systems strengthening initiatives supported by the Bank. Ethiopia, for example, has trained more than 30,000 community health workers, who have contributed to improved maternal and child health outcomes. Rwanda, through decentralization, expansion of health insurance and results-based financing, has reduced both infant and under-5 child mortality by 33% in just two years and increased health insurance coverage from 7% to 85% over five years. In addition, the Bank and its partners, though the HHA and IHP+ initiatives, have been assisting 14 governments in the Africa Region in preparing and, in some cases, implementing National Compacts that aim to establish (for each country) a single national health strategy, a unified budget, and a common monitoring and evaluation framework that all the development partners agree to support.

A brand new interactive Website, launched during the January 20 meeting, serves as an interactive tool and transparent window into the HSO Program. The Website, structured around the five pillars of support, includes information on the HSO team, a listing of the latest news and events on health systems strengthening (HSS), a blog, a knowledge library, a description of the type of HSO support provided to each country, and key HSS indicators by pillar and country. An innovative feature of the website is a virtual space where members of a community of practice can communicate and organize themselves, and learn from one another as they work in harmony with governments and colleagues from the development community to coordinate and carry out development efforts related to health systems strengthening.

The HSO website can be accessed at www.worldbank.org/hso and is a joint product of the World Bank and the Harmonization for Health in Africa (HHA) initiative http://hso.worldbank.org/hso/hha .