Strengthening Health Planning and Personnel Training (1984 - 1990)
The purpose of the project was to establish an effective and efficient planning and evaluation program at the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs (MoHSA) to support the Ministry's National Health Services Delivery Expansion Program.
MCDI was contracted to provide long-term technical assistance in the following areas:
- Health policy
- Program planning, health economics, and public-sector finance
- Epidemiological surveillance and systems development
- Programming and evaluation of the WHO's Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI)
- Health Information System (HIS) development
- Manpower planning and training
- Cost-effectiveness analyses for health services delivery
- Health management systems development
In-service training was provided to central- and prefecture-level personnel in the areas of health management, planning, evaluation, and financial management. Approximately 150 MoHSA staff were the beneficiaries of trainings conducted by MCDI over the duration of the project.
It should be noted that an external evaluation team assessed the project for USAID during the summer of 1987. The report stated that "by any reasonable standards of comparison" the accomplishments of the project were "outstanding". It also said that "progress in developing policies, procedures, plans; training of key personnel; and coordination had been extremely rapid as judged either by previous developments in the BF health sector, or by comparison with the speed of such developments in other developing countries."
