“It’s really important to link the integrated PHE approach with the policies and strategies of the country,” says Annie Wallace, who worked as a PHE technical advisor with USAID’s Global Health Fellows Program in
Ethiopia. “Because if you don’t have political buy-in from the decision-makers and the leaders, then it’s going to be really difficult to justify the allocation of different funds for these projects to be expanded to other regions, or expanded in scale, or even to expand outside of the country.”
With Ethiopia in particular, Wallace stressed the importance of PHE practitioners connecting their integrated approach with how it will help address the country’s poverty alleviation and climate change adaptation strategies. “The prime minister is a leader in Africa talking about climate change,” Wallace said, “and we really need to talk about how an integrated approach can help with adaptation and reducing a community’s vulnerability to climate change.”
On the funders’ side, Wallace noted that as monitoring and evaluation becomes more important, donors also need to be able to support building capacity in organizations in order to meet the new requirements. During her work with The David and Lucile Packard Foundation (via USAID), Wallace helped set up the PHE Ethiopia Consortium to facilitate such capacity-building efforts.
A Publication of the Stimson Center.
