In Senegal, USAID Projects Join Forces to Boost Results across Health and Governance

April 24, 2020A novel approach by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in Senegal is getting cross-cutting results by bringing together different projects to share resources and collaborate across sectors. While USAID began this approach long before the global outbreak of COVID-19, the partnerships and systems it has put into place are helping the agency continue to get results and improve health amid the pandemic.In 2016, the agency moved three of its programs—one focused on health services, one on health systems, and one on governance—into one regional office in Kolda, Senegal, with the goal of finding more efficient and effective ways to work together.The result: USAID dollars are stretching further and together the programs are providing better, more sustainable benefits for the people of Senegal.Now the projects are working together to combat COVID-19.In international development, multisector collaboration is often a goal—we know that, for example, poor environmental health affects nutrition, which affects human health, which affects children’s education and gender inequality, and so on. By sharing resources and expertise, we can be more efficient and boost our results across sectors—goals that become especially urgent during a pandemic.But this is often difficult. Due in part to the way our donors and funding streams work, we tend to each focus on our own area of expertise. USAID wanted its partners to do things differently i...
Source: IntraHealth International - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Senegal Neema COVID-19 Maternal, Newborn, & Child Health Leadership and Governance Global health security Health Workforce Systems Quality of Care Source Type: news