Press release
USAID project helps 149 communities improve health conditions
DAKAR, August 29, 2006 -- More than one third of Senegal’s
population has seen improvement in community health care and infrastructure owing
to a six-year, $15.8 million project financed by United States Agency for International
Development (USAID).
The health care decentralization project (Decentralisation et Initiative de
Santé Communautaire - USAID-DISC), which will be completed at the end of
August, has helped local governments, in collaboration with health officials and
civil society, identify local health needs, prioritize, plan and budget for activities
they choose based on their most pressing and accurate health needs.
Between 2000 and 2006, USAID-DISC, assisted 149 local governments out of 441,
in 22 health districts in the regions of Fatick, Kaolack, Louga, Thiès,
and Ziguinchor. In total, 37% of Senegal’s population of 11 million benefited
from this support.
In 1996, lawmakers ratified new decentralization reforms that transferred greater
decision-making responsibility to locally-elected officials. Among the changes
brought by the legislation, responsibility for planning local health development
and managing health funds was transferred to local governments.
A matching grant program supporting decentralized health planning at the community
level along with funding the plans locally developed with local resources and
the introduction of contractual services between elected officials and health
promoters are USAID-DISC’s main key innovative approaches.
Results:
The matching grant program has increased financial resources to fund the local
health needs and reinforce participation of the population in securing their own
health services.
The matching grant program focused on accessibility, integration and decentralization
and helped mobilize $1.6 million from local taxes that the USAID-DISC project
matched with $4.2 million to fund pressing community health needs. This money
has been used to build or reinforce capacities of locally elected, health agents
and members of local civil society.
Through the USAID-DISC project, communities have constructed and equipped 277
health huts and rehabilitated and equipped 24 referral health centers, 138 health
posts, and 162 health huts.
“What is important is the demonstration of good practices through the
project, so people from other zones are able to profit from the approach of USAID-DISC,"
said Farba Lamine Sall Cabinet Director in Senegal's Ministry of Health, who worked
for three years on the USAID-DISC activity.
Additionally, the implication of the local elected officials and civil society
in the identification of health problems, the development and implementation of
plans of operation, constitute another source of motivation of the community to
provide more consequent financial efforts to the profits of local health development.
Thanking USAID for its financial backing, Mr. Sall told a recent workshop:
"We are counting on a continued partnership, because what we have learned
from the USAID-DISC project is that the community should decide and act upon its
priorities."
According to Dr. Pape Amadou Diack, chief medical officer in the Thiès
region, "USAID-DISC has done everything it set out to do. There has been
a true partnership. We want this partnership to continue between the locally-elected
officials, the community health promoters and civil society at large.”
This approach taken by the USAID-DISC project will remain part of USAID’s
strategy in the years to come. Last month, USAID and the government of Senegal
signed a $13.7 million health assistance package for maternal and child health,
activities for preventing HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, and reinforcement
of health services, planning, and financing at the community level. The five-year
program will be implemented in the regions of Kaolack, Kolda, Louga Thiès,
and Ziguinchor.
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