HRIS Strengthening a Key Achievement of the Capacity Project

At the midpoint of the five-year Capacity Project, team members gathered in Washington, DC, for a technical review and workshop on the Project's efforts to strengthen human resources for health (HRH) to support key services in family planning, reproductive health and HIV/AIDS treatment and care. Held April 16-19, the workshop provided staff with an actively shared knowledge base in order to optimize effectiveness during the second half of the project. Technical staff from Kenya, Lesotho, Mali, Namibia, Rwanda, Tanzania, South Africa, Southern Sudan, Uganda and the Central America Regional Program joined US-based staff.

In one of the working group sessions, participants discussed the Project's most exciting accomplishments so far. Several groups cited achievements in strengthening human resources information systems, which provides overarching support for all HRH services.

Stembile Mugore from the South Africa (RHAP) office made reference to the participatory approach "that empowers ministries of health to take ownership, utilize data themselves, be able to set the agenda for moving forward and to recognize that they need additional data."

Along these lines, Vincent Oketcho from Uganda pointed to "strengthening information systems for generating evidence for planning and management." As an example, "The Capacity Project looked at the greatest pressure point in our country, the Nursing Council, where there's so much data passing through and there was so much confusion." Through the Project's involvement, the Council's data now "provides a major source for human resource tracking, planning and management." By asking "where is the shoe pressing the most," he said, the Project made a significant impact.

Read the full story.