Monrovia, 03 September 2021: Midway the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA)-funded project on “Making Health Systems Resilient to Public Health Emergencies with Quality Services and Emergency Preparedness and Response,” KOICA, WHO, Ministry of Health (MOH), and National Public Health Institute of Liberia (NPHIL) along with stakeholders have undertaken a midterm review (MTR) of the project implementation from September 2-3, 2021 at the Corina Hotel in Monrovia, Liberia.  The MTR analyzed key lessons learned and best practices through the project implementation and assessed emerging challenges as well as collated recommendations from key stakeholders to streamline the project, improve results and ultimately ensure the achievement of the project outcomes and further inform the next phase of the project implementation in Liberia (2021-2023).  

Held under strict adherence to COVID-19 protocol, the both virtual and in-person meeting brought together fifty (50) key stakeholders from eleven (11) healthcare facilities in the three (03) project counties, national and international levels (including KOICA-Nigeria Office, WHO-Headquarters) and other partner organizations. 

Speaking during the opening of the MTR Workshop, Hon. A. Vaifee Tulay, Deputy Health Minister for Policy Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation and Research on behalf of the Honorable Minister of Health for Liberia, Dr.  Wilhelmina Jallah, acknowledged the efforts of partners, especially WHO and the Korean Government for their support to Liberia health sector in enhancing quality healthcare service delivery during outbreaks and non-outbreak situations. “It is midway into the project implementation and new realities, like COVID-19 outbreak and re-emergence of EVD and Marburg threats have emerged. This is the reason why we need to revisit the dashboard to identify what went well, what did not go well and why, and how we can redesign the project or prioritize activities to respond to the current needs of the Country,” Minister Tulay said. 

Dr. Zabulon Yoti, WHO Acting Country Representative applauded the collaboration and commitment of the MOH, NPHIL, relevant institutions and partners towards building a resilient health system in Liberia.  “The importance of resilient health systems to tackle and withstand public health emergencies like COVID-19, while providing quality routine health services, cannot be overstated” Dr. Yoti said.  He reiterated WHO’s commitment for continued partnership with the MOH, donors, KOICA, and partners in this endeavor.

For his part, Dr. Sohel Saikat, the overall KOICA Project Lead expressed satisfaction that the collaboration with KOICA has brought WHO’s expertise in health systems, global health security agenda, as well as disease/life course under one platform.  He said for too long we have seen emergencies and health systems working parallel or in silos, isolated from one another and now responding to COVID-19, there is more like this and other challenges with us and ahead. “Strong and resilient health systems – equipped with and prepared for emergency – are our best line of defense.  This reduces the risks of small events turning into emergencies,” Dr. Sohel highlighted. He then applauded the Korean Government for the partnership that KOICA and WHO continue to demonstrate in addressing the many challenges confronting the health systems of Liberia, Ethiopia and other countries alike. 

Since its inception in Liberia (April 2019), the KOICA-funded HRS project continues to adopt a collaborative, participatory and multisectoral approaches to ensure close engagement with the project teams, government counterparts, donor, beneficiaries, and other key stakeholders in achieving several milestones in line with national priorities and the overall project objectives. 

To this end, the review team believes that if the recommendations from the gaps identified: i)  knowledge sharing and benchmarking of best practices ii) monitoring and tracking of health service quality and resilience indicators iii) roll out the training package for Health Service quality and resilience  iv) Launching and application of the Health System Simulation (SimEx) package  v)  Institutionalization of health service quality and  resilience into pre- and in-service training programs and vii)  adaptation and roll out of technical guidance for health service resilience e.g. Health Service Continuity Planning are implemented,  it is likely that the  milestones  of the KOICA funded project will   be  achieved by 2023. The stakeholders also called on WHO and KOICA to roll out the project in other health facilities, considering its impacts; and pledged to take measures to ensure sustainability and continuity of the interventions.

Both emerging and reemerging health emergencies have underscored the importance of quality health services with emergency preparedness in health system. This was observed in different public health events such as the 2014-15 Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak in Liberia and the COVID-19 pandemic.  As part of Liberia’s recovery process after the 2014-15 EVD outbreak to ensure health system functionality to maintain routine and emergency related healthcare services and response, key integrated approaches were identified. However, the operationalizing those integrated approaches in county level institutions and services remained a challenge.

The KOICA funded five-year project (2018 - 2023) on making health services resilient for public health emergencies was approved for Liberia along with Ethiopia, with the aim to build and strengthen resilient health care services to improve emergency preparedness while providing quality routine health services. Nineteen (19) healthcare facilities (public and private) from three (03) counties were selected to pilot the HSR project in Liberia.