African Regional Training Course on Promoting Rational Drug Use: Nairobi, Kenya, February 1-14, 2004

The project focuses on building technical skills and competencies in health service delivery, combined with leadership and management skills, as well as values and behaviors that demonstrate ethics, compassion, accountability, and transparency in public service. This approach involves modeling, training, mentoring, and exposing stakeholders to best practices in stewardship and health leadership. LMG/Bénin has three main objectives: (1) Strengthen governance practices such as advocacy, policy formulation, regulation, and information at the highest level of the Ministry of Health; (2) Develop leadership, management, and governance practices of health leaders and managers at central and decentralized structures of the Ministry and in the private sector; and (3) Strengthen institutional capacity of a competitively-selected local training institution. The project is working hand in hand with national health leadership to achieve these objectives. During the second quarter of the project, the LMG/Bénin team collaborated with the Ministry of Health, LMG Consortium, and USAID to revise and obtain approval for the second project year workplan and activities. The Secretary General of the Ministry validated the workplan in October, and USAID/Bénin approval is still pending. The local technical team is now completely staffed with the recent recruitment of a second Senior Technical Advisor in Capacity Building, who will work directly with the Ministry of Health. The project also recruited consultants to conduct a mapping exercise on training needs in the Ministry of Health and provide support in the development of a gender strategy during the next quarter. Despite some challenges, including the postponement of the second workshops for the Leadership Development Program (LDP) and Leadership Development Program Plus (LDP+), the LMG coaches held coaching sessions with all teams during December to ensure their continued engagement and progress. The Ministry of Health teams from the Direction de la Santé de la Mère et de l'Enfant (DSME), Agence Nationale de la Vaccination et des Soins de Santé Primaire (ANV-SSP), and the Programme National de Lutte contre le Paludisme (PNLP) have made little progress towards assessing their work environments and challenges to identify their desired measurable result for the duration of the LDP+. However, the LMG/Bénin team is working to support these teams in achieving their objectives. The project's overall goal is to strengthen leadership, management, and governance capacity at all levels of the health sector, targeting the result of universal and equitable access to a high-quality and integrated Essential Health Package, and improved health outcomes. The project will achieve this goal through action-oriented training for health leaders and managers in key health systems strengthening building blocks, and by developing the stewardship capacity of senior leaders through specialized training and mentoring, supported over the long term.