The Coordinator of the Expanded Immunization Program (EPI) – Head of Immunization Division, Senegal Ministry of Health, Dr. Ousseynou BADIANE, has recently shared a testimony on the fruitful collaboration with GaneshAID over the last 5 years. This cooperation has made it possible to meet many public health challenges and lay the foundations for fruitful partnerships to further strengthen the performance of the EPI.
Essential collaboration to overcome public health challenges
- EPI Senegal, just like in many vaccination programs around the world, is facing significant public health challenges in the following domains:
- Maintenance of vaccination coverage;
- Optimizing the quality of immunization services;
- Performance monitoring at all levels;
- Continuous capacity building of service providers;
- Sustainability of funding for the purchase of vaccines and operational costs;
- Expansion of the target (booster, vaccination of adolescents and older people);
- Adoption of a law on vaccination;
- Polio eradication and measles elimination;
- Building public confidence in immunization;
- Maintenance of equipment chain cold;
- Management of waste resulting from vaccination.
Faced with these obstacles, the EPI in Senegal recognized the need to forge strong partnerships to improve its effectiveness and address the concerns related to performance coaching. With this in mind, GaneshAID’s services were called upon to strengthen staff skills through personalized support, focused on improving service providers’ performance via supportive supervision.
How GaneshAID supported Senegal’s EPI
The collaboration with GaneshAID has been of paramount importance for the EPI. Indeed, GaneshAID brought its expertise to innovation. “The collaboration with the GaneshAID team has enabled the EPI to implement an innovative solution called Coach2PEV”, in order to meet the challenges of supportive supervision, including financial constraints, insufficient follow-up of recommendations between two oversights and a lack of human resources in terms of quantity and quality.
The tangible results of the collaboration with GaneshAID
The EPI highlighted many benefits they have derived from working with GaneshAID. Indeed, throughout the collaboration with the GaneshAID team, “team spirit prevailed from conception to the end of the pilot project.” Moreover, “constant support was provided to the EPI team for the pilot project implementation, as well as for the preparation of the scaling up process with the transfer of skills. We also note the establishment of technical support within the central EPI team and flexibility on the part of GaneshAID to continue to support the country after the pilot phase of the C2P project.“
Promising future partnerships to strengthen the effectiveness of the EPI
EPI Senegal has expressed interest in future partnerships with GaneshAID. They wish to continue to benefit from the expertise and support of GaneshAID to maximize their efforts’ impact in strengthening the EPI’s performance in Senegal. “The experience EPI had with the GaneshAID team will certainly remain the bedrock of a fruitful partnership that will further contribute to meeting the challenges of supportive supervision.” Thus, other perspectives may open up in areas such as:
- Interoperability between the Coach2PEV solution and the other applications used by the Direction of the Prevention
- The integration of the other programs of the Ministry of Health and Social Action in the Coach2PEV solution.
Finally, the collaboration between EPI Senegal and GaneshAID has successfully overcome the obstacles facing the programme. The cooperation with GaneshAID has overwhelmed them and significantly improved the performance of EPI staff. This success story highlights the importance of strong partnerships and collaboration with GaneshAID in delivering innovative solutions to enhance the program’s implementation and protect the health of vulnerable populations.
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