The East African Community Secretariat in collaboration with Kenya’s State Department of East African Affairs and the Ministry of Health is organizing a five-day dissemination workshop on regional health projects and programmes for health sector stakeholders.
The overall objective of the workshop which runs from September 28 to October 2 is to bring on board different stakeholders and policy makers at different levels with the aim of raising the participants’ awareness and uptake of EAC health projects and programmes.
It is expected that the workshop in Nairobi, Kenya will lead to better understanding and improved knowledge about the EAC health sector, its vision, projects and programmes among the policy makers and the general public in Kenya.
The dissemination workshop will be conducted at two levels. The high level government policy makers will briefed on spot visits in their boardrooms on specific EAC Health Programmes and projects. It is expected that each of these sessions will have targeted messages and will last for not more than one hour.
The proposed Ministries to be visited include: Ministry of Health, National Treasury, Ministry of Devolution and Planning, Ministry of Industrialization and Enterprise Development, Government of Nairobi City County, and the State Department of East African Affairs. This will then be followed by a two-day workshop for targeted middle level policy makers and implementers scheduled for October 1 and October 2, 2015 at the Grand Laico Regency Hotel, Nairobi, Kenya.
The EAC Secretariat has developed a Regional Health Sector Strategic Plan 2015-2020, which has a number of projects and programmes aimed at the realization of better health in the region.
These include the Open Health Initiative (OHI); East African Medicines Regulatory Harmonization (EAC-MRH) Programme; Population Health and Environment (PHE) Programme; and the EAC HIV and AIDS, TB and STI Programme whose Strategic Plan and Implementation Framework (2015 – 2020) was approved by the EAC’s policy-making organ, the Council of Ministers.
‘The lack of adequate information on EAC health projects and programmes makes it hard for implementation of various decisions and directives by the EAC Health Ministers at the national levels. This further impacts negatively on the ability by various stakeholders and pharmaceutical manufacturers to take advantage of emerging markets within the EAC region’ a release by the Secretariat states in part.
