Gaborone, Botswana - 9 November 2020: The Ministry of Health and Wellness (MOHW) facilitated a two-day Country COVID-19 Intra-Action Review (IAR) workshop through technical assistance from the World Health Organization (WHO) Country Office. The IAR workshop was financially supported by the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) as their contribution to COVID-19 response. The workshop provided an opportunity to key stakeholders to share experiences and collectively analyze the on-going in-country COVID-19 response by identifying challenges and best practices.

In attendance were key stakeholders and partners including government departments, District Health Management Teams (DHMTs), WHO, FHI 360, University of Botswana (UB) as well as ACHAP. Speaking at the workshop, the MOHW Community Health Services Advisor, Mr Samuel Kolane indicated that it has been 11 months since the global community was hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the most unprecedented and debilitating outbreaks and one of the sobering public health emergencies the world has experienced in a long time. “We have always known that at some point we will have to assess our response to the pandemic, to plug any gaps that may exist, and/or refocus our efforts for effective containment of the disease’’ said Mr Kolane.

The IAR is in line with the resolution that was passed by the WHO member states at the World Health Assembly in May 2020, requesting an evaluation at the earliest appropriate moment of lessons learnt from the international health response to COVID-19 pandemic. The IAR is a country-led process conducted during the COVID-19 outbreak in-country, bringing together a small group of COVID-19 responders with knowledge of the public health response pillars under review.  

The workshop was a consultative and informative exercise through group discussions that focused on the strengths, challenges and contributing factors of the response.  The WHO Guidance for Conducting a Country COVID-19 Intra-Action Review (IAR) was developed to guide countries in conducting periodic review(s) of their national and subnational COVID-19 response, so that they do not miss critical opportunities for learning and improvement to better respond to the COVID-19 outbreak.

The discussion groups then came together in a plenary session to identify factors that need to be addressed to improve the ongoing response, such as the establishment of an Intra-Action Review Follow-up team, development of recommendations and the best approach to ensure engagement of senior leadership.