The World Health Organization has conducted a five-day capacity-building training for 22 national health observatory focal points from Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, and Uganda to generate a series of knowledge products that will support health decision-making processes.

The training was launched on September 05, 2022, at Speke Resort Munyonyo, Kampala, Uganda, by Mr. Paul Mbaka, the Assistant Commissioner of Health Services in charge of the Division of Health Information, at the Ministry of Health, and WHO’s team led by Dr. Bayo Fatunmbi, the Officer in Charge and Cluster Lead for Communicable and Non-Communicable diseases at the WHO Country Office in Uganda.

Speaking at the launch, Mr Paul Mbaka said that over the past decade, African countries have sought to contribute to the strengthening of the health information system through the establishment of National Health Observatories (NHOs). These play a key role in using information and data on trends in health and its social determinants for policy dialogue, as well as for monitoring and evaluating the implementation of national strategies and plans.

“To achieve the objectives of the National Health Observatories, beyond data collection, we must be able to generate usable knowledge, facilitate the use of knowledge and encourage exchanges (network/dialogue) based on this knowledge,” Mr. Paul Mbaka stressed.

The knowledge generation, orientation and capacity building workshop was part of the strategy to expand the integrated African Health Observatory (iAHO), a platform that provides real-time overview and reliable health information in the WHO African Region. It is also a step towards meeting the commitment of the Regional Committee for Africa, which earlier this year set a target of reaching 47 fully functional national health observatories by 2024, as part of strengthening the use of evidence, information, and research for policymaking in the Region. 

Through detailed methodology and practical sessions, the training has improved participants' capacities to develop quality knowledge products including analytical factsheets, knowledge factsheets, blog articles, policy briefs, and infographics, and strengthened their ability to synthesize evidence and generate knowledge throughout the policy-action cycle.

“This workshop has strengthened countries' capacities to develop knowledge products through national health observatory to improve the use of data to inform health decision making in their respective countries,”- Dr. Serge Bataliack, the Coordinator of integrated African Health Observatory at the WHO Regional Office for Africa.
Dr. Serge also explained that each participating country came with a draft of two knowledge products which were evaluated and commented on by the team for improvement.

"In my country, we produce a lot of data, but I understand that this data is sometimes too technical to be used effectively by decision-makers. This training has strengthened my ability to provide health information in a very simple way to be understood and used by non-health professionals." Mr. Thomas Ankomah, Statistician at the Ministry of Health, Ghana.

Like other information managers who attended the training, Mr. Thomas will, with WHO support, cascade the knowledge he has gained to his counterparts in the Ministry of Health, the National Health Observatory, and the Human Resources Observatory to produce simple, good-quality products to improve the national health information system.