Update from our team in Mali, April to June 2022
Progress on health security in Mali has continued this quarter, despite a difficult backdrop of instability, and widespread food insecurity due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Our in-country team has helped the country take important steps forward and is working to leave a sustainable legacy after our programme closes at end November 2022. Gender, Equity and Social Inclusion is a strong theme across all areas of our work as it is vitally important that the health security needs of the marginalized and most vulnerable groups in Mali are met.
April – June 2-22 highlights:
Formalizing civil society’s role in health security
TDDA helped to create Mali’s first national network of civil society organizations (CSOs) working in health security. We supported the drafting of their first statutes and rules of procedure as well as a “roadmap” of activities, which ensures the network will be strongly focused on working with internally displaced people to raise awareness of disease risks and encourage vaccinations. In particular, their work will reach out to women, children and elderly people living on the outskirts of Bamako.
We also assisted the new network to organize their first annual general meeting (April 2022), which was chaired by the permanent secretariat of the government’s National One Health Platform and resulted in the approval of a work plan for 2022-2023. By formalizing the network and fostering closer ties between CSOs and government we are ensuring that our CSO capacity-building work will continue to have impact beyond our exit and gives civil society a meaningful voice in health security.
Prioritizing women and children within the National Action Plan for Health Security (NAPHS)
We recently provided support to the National One Health Platform to help them draft and validate the NAPHS operational action plan and the platform’s own annual plan for 2022. Part of this process involved a workshop for 28 officials and partners (April 2022), which we used as an opportunity to discuss TDDA’s exit and advocate strongly for the inclusion of activities focusing on women and children.
Strengthening community-based surveillance (CBS) to save lives
This quarter, we continued our efforts to strengthen district surveillance capabilities in line with the latest international standards (IDSR-3). Designed to improve the speed and accuracy with which public health events are reported, we provided technical and financial assistance to a training workshop (June 2022) for officials from the Gao regions of Ménaka and Kidal, who will cascade their learnings to community agents at district level. By equipping communities to report cases of diseases that might otherwise go undetected, we improve the data that decision-makers can use to mount effective and timely responses so that outbreaks do not escalate.
TDDA’s work in Mali is delivered through Fondation Mérieux, in partnership with Mali’s Ministry of Health and the Fondation Mérieux USA