Annual Summary Progress Report: Essential Health Project in Myanmar

The project is implemented by Jhpiego in collaboration with consortium partners Koe Koe Tech, Pact, Population Services International (PSI), and ThinkWell, with Broad Branch Associates added as a partner for technical assistance to the Ministry of Health and Sports (MOHS) National Health Plan Implementation Monitoring Unit (NIMU) in project year one. To achieve the project's goal, Essential Health works towards achieving three intermediate results (IR): IR1, IR2, and IR3. IR1 focuses on strengthening health system governance to improve the enabling environment for the essential package of health services (EPHS). Sub-IR 1.1 aims to optimize human and financial resources allocation and management. Essential Health conducted workshops to develop the Institutional Capacity Self Review (ICSR) tool in Ayeyarwady Region and Kayin State with State/Regional Health Departments in June and July 2018. The project also conducted ICSR workshops in four project townships and used the ICSR tool to identify areas that require capacity building support. Development of Institutional Strengthening Plans (ISPs) for each township is ongoing, with Essential Health staff providing technical support to implement the ISPs in project year two. Capacity building support to Township Health Departments (THDs) and Ethnic Health Organizations (EHOs) has not been provided yet, as it will be given based on the ISPs, which have not yet been finalized for THDs and not yet initiated for EHOs. However, some exploratory field visits to Pantanaw, Kyangin, and Thandaunggyi townships were conducted to do user-testing on the maymay app as a whole. Essential Health also shared the maymay app with the participants during these trips. Essential Health prepared a draft desk-review report to identify key Human Resources for Health (HRH) challenges and bottlenecks at national and subnational levels. The project proposed the scope and approach of HRH research activities to the HRH Technical Working Group (TWG) ThinkWell in Naypyitaw in July 2018 and agreed on priority areas for a deep-dive analysis in project year two. Essential Health also prepared an advanced draft research protocol (including data collection tools) for an HRH study in townships for submission to in-country ethics committee review in project year two. The project initiated scoping and mapping of potential areas for analysis of bottlenecks to the planning, resource allocation, and budget execution functions at national and subnational levels. Essential Health also prepared a checklist for consultation with THDs on key health financing challenges and opportunities. The project drafted a concept note to support MOHS (Admin/Finance unit) to develop a health facility registry, including development of a (virtual) village boundary to better identify health facilities' catchment areas and support AccessMod utilization.