A chronology of the Malaria Competence approach in The Gambia
In June 2005, a meeting of the “Health for Peace Initiative” was hosted by the Gambia, in Banjul. The participants were Health Ministers and their Directors and National Malaria Control Programme Managers, of Senegal, Gambia, Guinée Conakry, Cabo Verde and Equatorial Guinea. The HPI countries agreed that malaria remains a scourge and have negative impact in member countries requiring collective strategic sub region action.
The meeting was meant to review individual country progress towards meeting the Abuja targets, identifying challenges finding solutions and best practices that can be replicated in other countries.
These meetings were also dedicated to looking for means of promoting peace through sub regional health programmes. This meeting was supported by Roll Back Malaria and facilitated by the Constellation for Aids Competence. The Constellation for AIDS competence and the organisers wanted to see whether AIDS competence can as well be replicated into malaria prevention and control. The malaria competence approach was hence introduced to countries. Countries self assessed their malaria competence levels on country basis during the meeting. The tool and process was field tested in The Gambia and countries had the opportunity of facilitating the process in different settings and communities in The Gambia.
Realising that the approach can help galvanise action, countries expressed interest in introducing the approach at country level. RBM, hence facilitated a Training of Trainers on Malaria competence in Mombassa, Kenya in August 2005 for country programs.
Two representatives from the Gambia attended this workshop in Monbassa : Mrs Adam Jagne Sonko, Deputy Programme Manager in the National Malaria Control Programme and Miss Marie Chorr, NSGA Project Manager. Both were convinced that the Self Assessment tool was relevant to their work.
Back in the Gambia, they started experimenting the process in selected communities in the Western Health Region (representing more than half of the country’s population). Training of trainers was conducted at national level to set up their local facilitation team.
Then, with the suport of AWARE, 30 more facilitators were trained (members of regional health teams, teachers, Comunity health Nurse, NGSA staff members, etc). The process started in few communities and it was well accepted and appreciated by communities. It was seen to be a good approach for mobilising community support for malaria action.
Through the peer health approach of the NSGA, schools were also used and linked to communities.
Scaling up of the approach was done in selected regions through the aware RH project coordinated by NMCP and NSGA.
Given the positive impact of using the approach to galvanise community action for malaria and fostering a sense of ownership for the program at community level, the country has plans to scale up the approach across the whole country. Resource mobilisation is key to scaling up and the country looks forward to greater and stronger partnership to reach out to more communities.