USAID launches $75 million health program in Senegal
Actors
pass along key health messages during skits to launch USAID's new health program
in the capital, Dakar. Photo by R. Nyberg, USAID |
DAKAR, November 9, 2006 – The U.S. Agency for International
Development (USAID) has launched a five-year, $75 million program to help improve
the health of Senegalese families, in particular mothers and young children living
in rural areas.
Covering 28 health districts in the regions of Kaolack, Kolda, Louga, Thiès,
and Ziguinchor, the USAID program will include activities promoting health policy
and financing, measures to combat HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, maternal and child
health, family planning, and community health.
The new program, which runs until 2011, extends American assistance to the
region of Kolda, which had not benefited from USAID-funded activities in the health
sector. Also, the regions of Dakar and St. Louis will receive support in the areas
of family planning and efforts to curb sexually transmitted diseases, HIV/AIDS,
and tuberculosis.
“The USAID health program that we celebrate today is an extension of
the wonderful experiences that we have shared over the years,” Oumar Sarr,
Senegal’s minister of state buildings, housing, and construction, standing
in for the health minister, told the audience at Tuesday’s program launch
ceremony in the capital Dakar.
“It is important to stress the important role that the U.S. government
plays through USAID,” he said, adding that the support to the health sector
“is much appreciated by our health professionals and our population”.
Urging the Government of Senegal to invest more funds for health, the U.S.
Ambassador to Senegal, Janice L. Jacobs, expressed the wish that health services
would soon be better positioned to “save lives through newborn care, assisted
births, family planning, treatment and prevention of malaria and pneumonia at
the community level, where this assistance is needed the most.”
Minister Sarr noted that the “political will, expressed at the highest
government levels for adequate funding for our health programs will never be compromised.”
Since 1979, USAID/Senegal’s health program has supported the Ministry
of Health and local communities in efforts to reduce maternal and child deaths,
prevent infectious disease and other illness, and help people live healthier lives.
In addition to fighting major diseases like malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS,
USAID strengthens national and local health systems that provide preventive and
curative services for the population, supports family planning programs to allow
couples to have children when they want them, and helps communities plan and finance
their own health services.
In particular, assistance provided by USAID for diagnosis and treatment of
childhood diseases, vaccination and nutrition programs, and support to community
health hut and district clinics to treat illnesses such as pneumonia and malaria
contributed significantly to a 13% reduction of infant mortality since 1997.
The implementing partners of USAID/Senegal’s health program include:
Abt Associates Inc. (AAI); Family Health International (FHI); IntraHealth, International;
and a consortium of organizations led by the Christian Children’s Fund (CCF).
USAID has invested over $1 billion in a wide range of activities since 1961
-- an average of nearly $30 million each year -- to tackle constraints to national
development. In addition to health, USAID currently carries out programs supporting
economic growth, education, and peace-building in the southern Casamance region,
which has seen more than two decades of civil conflict.
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