ECSA - Health Community

My internship in ECSA - Health Community has been so far very successful. Every day in ECSA is exciting and busy with numerous on-going projects, meetings and activities. This year ECSA is celebrating 40^th anniversary and this can be seen in so many levels of work. ECSA has now 40 years of promoting regional cooperation for better health. According to Director General, even despite the economic down turns that have affected most of the member states the role of ECSA as a secretariat remains not to compromise the mandate ECSA is entrusted in. The region of ECSA provides challenging demographic statistics which incline to poor health indicators, poor economic performance indicators leaving the region in enormous need even if most of the mortality and morbidity causes that impact the economic development are controllable and preventable.

Currently the seven departments of ECSA are HIV/AIDS program, Family & Reproductive Health, Human Resources for Health & Capacity Building Programme, Research, Information & Advocacy, Food & Nutrition, Health Systems & Services and Monitoring & Evaluation. The vision of ECSA is to be the leader in health in East, Central and Southern Africa, contributing towards the attainment of the highest standard of physical, mental and social well-being of the people in the region. This is done through advocacy, capacity building, brokerage, coordination, inter-sectoral collaboration and harmonization of health polices and programmes. Focus of the work on this year is taking stock of past performance and focus on the post MDG agenda. Especially attention is directed to universal health coverage, communicable and non-communicable diseases within wider context of the determinants of health, globalization and health.

Currently ECSA is preparing the 8th Best Practices Forum (BPF) and the 24th Directors’ Joint Consultative Committee (DJCC) Conference with a theme “ECSA Health Community at 40: Strengthening Regional Cooperation for Better Health Outcomes”. Sub-Themes are “Universal Health Coverage”, “Innovations in the development of Human Resources for Health”, “MDGs lessons for Post 2015 Agenda” and “Control of infectious diseases”.

I’m so thankful to be involved with the important work that is conducted in ECSA every day.