15-07-2018, Addis Ababa (Ethiopia): The Director for Planning and Policy of the Federal Ministry of Health of Ethiopia, Ms Biruk Abate, yesterday July 14th opened the 3rd Steering Committee Meeting of the health data project of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development dubbed the IGAD Regional Action through Data (RAD) in Addis Ababa with the Acting Director of Health & Social Development Division, Ms Fathia Alwan, at the high table.
The Steering Committee Meeting was preceded by a two-day Monitoring & Evaluation Technical Working Group whose main objectives were to set a platform for establishing a monitoring framework for the project progress and to identify key indicators that would be the first indicators to be collected by the project.
Subsequently, the Steering Committee meeting is to validate the outcome of the M&E technical working group. The members of the Steering Committee and of the IGAD RAD M&E Working Group are Directors of Health Management Information Systems, and of Policy and Planning Departments; M&E Experts from the Department of Communicable Disease/Diseases Prevention and Control, as well as from the National Health Management Information Systems.
In her opening remarks, Ms Abate, touched on the challenges posed by the fragmented, complex and incomplete nature and the limited use of available data; which affects “performance in health care delivery”. “It is difficult to access data in a form that allows for informed decisions at the service delivery level”,
She added that the purpose of this initiative was “to improve the health outcomes in term of saving lives and reduce mortality and morbidity of common health problems among our population in IGAD region”. Ms Abate also extended appreciation to USAID for supporting the IGAD RAD initiative and acknowledged
Ms Fathia Alwan commended the achievements since the Inception of the IGAD RAD initiative and expressed her confidence in the 3rd Steering Committee as to meeting “the expectation through key recommendations and endorsements of the work by the technical experts”.
The purpose of the IGAD RAD initiative is to provide support to IGAD and member countries in their efforts to utilize data and technological solutions to inform decision making in policy, planning, implementation and resource allocation in health service delivery; in order to contribute to improved health and development outcomes.
