JUBA, 29 January 2010 (PlusNews) - The evidence of five years of peace is everywhere in Juba, regional capital of Southern Sudan - in the brisk trade in the city's markets, its packed bars and nightclubs, and in the relaxed gait of the soldiers of the former rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA).

WHO defines six building blocks of a health system: service delivery, health workforce, information, commodities (products, vaccines and technologies), financing and leadership/governance. The health systems approach puts the emphasis not just on the components of the health system, but the relationships within and between the building blocks. Core to health systems strengthening (HSS) is the idea that none of these building blocks can stand alone, all are necessary for better health outcomes.

By working with private health facilities, the five year PC4 Project in Ethiopia contributed to increased access to affordable, high-quality HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis (TB) prevention and care services. The goal of the USAID-funded project, which ended in September 2009, was to improve TB detection and treatment in the context of HIV/AIDS, a frequent coinfection.

IntraHealth International has received a five-year grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to increase access to modern family planning methods among Senegal’s urban poor. 

One third of Senegal’s low-income urban women lack access to modern family planning, contributing to the country’s high maternal and newborn mortality rate; 690 out of every 100,000 pregnancies in Senegal end in the mother’s death, and 11% of Senegalese children die before the age of five. The project aims to double access to and use of modern family planning in six Senegalese cities.

“The laughter and cries of those little angels keep going through my mind. I will carry those memories with me wherever I go,” says Grace Kariuki-Mogaka, senior programs officer, referring to IntraHealth’s Kenya staff team’s visit to Kenyatta National Hospital to celebrate an early Christmas with children in the pediatric ward on November 20, 2009. The staff used the funds allocated to them for an end-of-year holiday event to buy the children gifts such as clothes, shoes, toys, and a Christmas cake.