Project description

Title: Improvement of health care
Commissioned by: Ministère de la Santé Publique
Financier: Agence française du Développement (AfD), Paris
Country: Chad
Overall term: December 2004 – December 2006

Context

The Republic of Chad is the fifth largest country in Africa. It is one of the world's least developed and poorest countries. Some 80 percent of the population live in rural areas and have either inadequate access to health care or none at all. In the late 1990s the Ministry of Health responded by reorienting its strategy and making improvement of primary health care a priority. As part of this effort, GTZ IS has been assigned to implement projects to improve primary health care in two of Chad’s 14 prefectures.

Objective

The two projects in the prefectures of Kanem and Lac are intended to raise the quality of health care and to ensure better access to health services in all sub-regions.

Approach

GTZ IS is employing similar approaches in both projects to achieve the desired goals. Examples of the thematic areas for our work in Lac prefecture are:

1. Improvement of services offered by health centres on district and municipal levels:

• training of additional local staff who are to be employed in planning and implementation by means of, for example, courses and seminars
• establishment of monitoring systems to ensure a high performance standard for health centres
• establishment of a repair and maintenance system for health facilities
• establishment of coordinating offices on the district and municipal levels.

2. Drafting and setting up of a training system for health sector employees

3. Participation of the civil society in shaping the health system (for example, through brain-storming sessions) and development of models for reimbursement of costs

4. Establishment of a procurement system for medicines and other goods needed to ensure health care at acceptable levels 

5. Advisory services for the implementation of special programmes: for instance, regional inoculation campaigns, HIV/AIDS testing and pregnancy counselling

6. Compiling and assessment of statistics for the development of the health sector and corresponding reporting to the client and the financier.