Thursday 26 June 2014

UK Policy Focus on Health Systems Strengthening

This week, health systems strengthening is all the rage in the UK policy circles. Well, at least among particular UK policy circles.

The main reason for this is that the UK Parliament's International Development Committee heard oral evidence for its inquiry into DFID's approach to health systems strengthening.

If you've got two hours to spare, you can still watch the oral evidence on Parliament TV -- with the exception of one of the MPs suggesting that 'health systems strengthening is all just a bunch of waffle', it's an interesting watch.

But if you haven't got the time on your hands, Pamoja have captured a few of the key moments and lines of enquiry in a Storify (also embedded below). And we here at Future Health Systems developed a useful primer on Buzzfeed: 7 Things To Know About DFID's Approach To Health Systems Strengthening.



Written evidence submitted to the committee is now also available. As we noted before, FHS submitted evidence to the inquiry, as did a number of our sister research programme consortia (RPCs). DFID's own response is well worth a nosey.

And all of that should prove useful background reading and viewing for tomorrow's livechat on Guardian's Development Professional Network on making health systems work in developing countries. FHS CEO, Sara Bennett will be on the panel -- so be on the lookout!

by Jeff Knezovich