Awka, 24 February 2018 - Development Partners working in the health sector gathered formally for the first time with key government staff from Awka Anambra State to chart a course forward towards aligning development assistance to government priorities and effective coordination of activities. 

The maiden edition of the Anambra State Health Partners Forum was inaugurated by the Commissioner for Health Dr Joe Akabuike who said, “I am happy that this support is coming now to enable us to coordinate more effectively the activities of Partners supporting us in a way that will benefit all.” However, he voiced concern over how the assistance was not always the most effective. Dr Akabuike  noted  “It is always disheartening seeing partners’ come into the state and go to health facilities or local government areas of preference to implement their interventions without due recourse to needs of the state”. 

These practices as enumerated by the Commissioner have not only robbed the state of opportunities to tap into the technical capacity of each partner but also made it difficult to assess the financial contribution to health sector development. Moreso, dearth of institutional and local capacity present great challenges to sustaining the gains of such interventions. 

Anambra benefits from the support of several partners in various areas of the health sector which are aligned to their particular health programme. The World Health Organization’s (WHO) support through the European Union funding to the state  is focused on strengthening the health systems to move towards achieving universal health coverage. Support for the launch of the Health Partners Forum and its functionality is one of the many agreed interventions to improve health system and health status of people of Anambra state.

The Anambra Partners’ Forum with membership WHO, UNICEF, USAID implementing Partners, The African Field Epidemiology Network, Nigeria Supply Chain Integration Project and Civil Society Organization among others, generally agreed that silo implementation of activities was a major challenge, resulting in poor coordination amongst the partners. In addition, regular joint sector reviews and planning were not institutionalized, posing challenges to efficient allocation and deployment of scarce resources. Partners’ funding could substantially close funding gaps in the sector but for the inefficiencies introduced by programme fragmentation, and weak resource leveraging. Opportunities to improve the operation of public health services and health facilities and to expand access to higher quality services have been under-utilized because of the weak system. 

A functional Health Partners Forum in any state will optimize opportunities for growth in the health sector. The overall objective is to imbibe the principles of smart aid as enshrined in the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness which stipulates ownership by the state government, alignment of intervention to governments objectives, harmonization of activities  to remove duplications and ensuring that utilization of resources is maximized with mutual accountability by both government and partners.

Technical Contact:

Dr. Nkiruka Okor; Email: okorn [at] who.int (okorn[at]who[dot]int); Tel: +234 813 1736 266