Intercountry Workshop on ?New Ways of Working in WHO?, Opens in Nairobi, Kenya

Intercountry Workshop on ?New Ways of Working in WHO?, Opens in Nairobi, Kenya

Nairobi, 11th July 2005-- The Director of Medical Services, Dr. James Nyikal officially opened an inter-country WHO workshop on new ways of working on behalf of the Minister for Health, Hon. Charity Ngilu. This workshop whose main objective is to address the critical issue of positioning WHO Office to better give technical support to country offices, has brought together WHO leadership from 15 countries in the African Region in addition to representatives from WHO Regional Office Brazzaville and WHO Headquarters Geneva.
Addressing the participants at the opening ceremony, Dr. James Nyikal, Director of Medical Services underscored the importance of the workshop since WHO was best placed to guide countries. The Director of Medical Services gladly noted the progress with the WHO Country Cooperation Strategy (CCS).

He further said that Kenya appreciated the process of strengthening Country Offices to provide more responsive, effective, efficient and integrated strategic technical support for better health outcomes which would be better delivered by WHO working across its three levels and programmes. This was because the theme for the next Kenya 5 Year Health Sector Strategic Plan (2005-2010) is “Reversing the Trend”, which is driven by the fact that the health indicators in Kenya have been going down. Dr. Nyikal added that the Ministry of Health would focus on “health” other than “disease” as the main concerns will be promoting health, addressing target population, providing health services at various levels: the community, dispensary/health centre, district and referral. The importance of targeting the poor and the marginalized especially in the rural areas was stressed.

The Minister in her message noted that the agenda of the workshop which proposed to discuss and suggest new ways of working and enhancing coordinated funding mechanisms for health by WHO Country Offices was timely. It was pointed out that improving health- financing mechanism eases the burden of disease. He added that the Ministry of Health is currently re-organising its structure in order to provide links between peripheral, District and National levels.

Emphasising the need to work with coordination and harmonization of development partners, Dr. Nyikal said that data collection and analysis at the district level could enhance the process of strengthening health systems. He added that countries needed capacity building in financial management, commodity supply, evidence-based information system and decentralization, as they are vital requirements to strengthen countries. The Minister urged other countries in the African Region to collaborate with the WHO to ensure that consistency was maintained in order to push the health agenda forward.

In his message delivered by Dr. Peter Eriki, WR/Kenya, the WHO Regional Director, Dr. Luis Gomes Sambo thanked the Government of Kenya for its continued support and the good relations it has with WHO.

The Regional Director pointed out that WHO Country Offices had to position themselves to tackle new approaches to health both in the Region and globally, as the technical challenges faced in Public Health are now more complex than two decades ago. Dr. Sambo hailed the new opportunities such as the recent meeting of G8 in which specific interventions in Health were mentioned with particular reference to Africa. Other opportunities he mentioned include the Global Fund, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Millennium Fund and GAVI. He said that the development of agendas like the MDGs and AU/NEPAD as initiatives would create conducive environment for more funds for investing in Health.

The Regional Director gave certain strategic directions towards attainment of the highest level of health in Africa. These include: 
• Strengthening the WHO Country Offices
• Supporting the planning and management of district health systems with due attention on the community level
• Scaling up essential health interventions in primary health care
• Increasing preparedness for and response to emergencies and epidemics as well as environmental health
• Building sustainable inter-sectoral collaboration and partnership for health

Dr. Sambo emphasized that the technical support to Country Offices would be based on country needs and aspirations to enable countries reach international goals like the MDGs. He pointed out how WHO was re-positioning itself to reaffirm its commitment to support governments to deliver their stewardship role. The role of WHO as a broker among the developmental partners will be strengthened to enable the organization act as a catalyst in promoting closer international engagement on national health policies. He added that WHO would also continue to promote true health partnerships in order to mainstream interventions within the concept of “one country plan, one country budget and one- monitoring mechanism” led by the Government

This Inter-Country Workshop on new ways of working is to facilitate regional scaling up of the learning by doing exercise which started in Nairobi in 2004 where working across programmes were first discussed in depth. The participants are looking at new ways of working and enhancing coordinated funding mechanisms for health by WHO Country Offices within the framework of operationalizing the Country Cooperation Strategies in the WHO African Region. The workshop, based on the experiences and lessons learned from Kenya, Tanzania and Malawi who initiated the process will build capacities of WCO leadership to commence the new ways of working. The expectation is that the real exercise will start in the Country Offices when the WHO Representatives, Liaison Officers, Administrative Officers and ICP Team Leaders participating in the workshop get back to their respective countries of assignments. 

Others who spoke at the opening ceremony included: Dr. Oladapo Walker, WHO African Region, Dr.Bob Fryatt, WHO Geneva, Dr. Evarist Njelesani, WHO African Region and Dr. Funke Bogunjoko, WHO African Region. The workshop ends on 15 July 2005.

For more information, please contact:

Dr. Peter Eriki
WHO Representative to Kenya 
4th Floor ACK Garden House, 1st Ngong Avenue, off Bishops Road
P.O. Box 45335, NAIROBI
GPN 35002
Tel: (254-20) 271 7902/8255/8749/8024
Fax: (254-20) 2714191/2

 

Email:WR [at] ke.afro.who.int