Part of my work here at IntraHealth is on a program in Ethiopia that aims to prevent HIV transmission from mother to child. One of the ways we do this is by encouraging women to deliver in a health facility where they can get prophylactic care to stop HIV transmission.
We often talk about how countries grapple with the challenge of building and maintaining a health workforce that can deliver high-quality health services. In part, it’s a problem of too few health workers or a poor mix of the right skill sets or geographic distribution.
Reading Samuel Loewenberg’s article, “Ethiopia Struggles to Make Its Voice Heard,” I thought, finally, someone is speaking out about something too many of us remain silent on—the vast gap in some countries between actual needs and donors’ perceived priorities, particularly when it comes to HIV/AIDS funding.
Working on the CapacityPlus project, I’m always excited to see capacity-building in action and hear how local leaders are strengthening the health workforce. Recently I learned about a terrific story from West Africa and wanted to help share it.
A couple of months ago I was in Rwanda and was heartened by the tremendous work of my Rwandan colleagues to create programs that support and teach health workers how to offer nonjudgmental, competent care to survivors of gender-based violence.