Monrovia – Mr. Tolbert Nyenswah, Liberia’s Deputy Minister of Health, has told students at the Cuttington University that planning and proper implementation are key to the attainment of national development programs.
Report by Bettie K. Johnson Mbayo, [email protected]
Serving as one of the panelists, at the CUC graduate school health policy one-day interactive dialogue, Monday, Deputy Health Minister Nyenswah, speaking on the importance policies, implementation, monitoring and evaluation in the health sector, averred that Liberia’s implementation of two of the world’s global development policies, the Millennium Development goals and the current Sustainable Development Goals illustrate that Liberia was just three years into the implementation of the implementation of its National Health policy that was developed for 2011 to 2014 when Ebola stroke the country.
“Although we had a national health plan that was developed for the health sector for the period, 2011 to 2014, the fact remains, we did not know such a virus like Ebola would have shifted the entire plan and rigged us off our feet”, said Minister Nyenswah.
“The experience the country had with the Ebola virus led to changes and new health plans. “Now, if any virus or disease outbreak were to break out in Liberia, the health system would be prepared enough to control it”.
For her part, Mrs. Mona Sankoh, representing the Security Cooperation at the US Embassy heaped praise on Liberia for the many good national polices, but was fast to express frustration over the poor implementation and monitoring of the various policies. “We have good policies, but deliverable can be poor and one of the things can make policies to be implemented fully is political will”, Mrs. Sankoh stated.
The embassy official then encouraged students of the Cuttington graduate school of the department of Healthcare and policy management to pattern their learning after good implementation and become good policies makers to change the system.
Professor James Ballah, Executive Director of the Healthcare Policy and Management, at the graduate school, said the one day orientation and policy dialogue was to serve as an eye opener for new students in the department to have clear understanding of the department and policy developments within the health sector.
He praised the department for the fast growth in the number of students that have graduated and enrolled since its establishment.
The department of Healthcare Policies and Management at the Cuttington graduate school over the weekend ended its first annual health planning and policy dialogue with a call for students of the department to develop positive attitude to become good policy makers and implementers.
The event brought together policies experts from the ministry of Health, the United Nations Development Program, Food and agricultural Organization and the US Embassy in Monrovia including students and faculties of Cuttington graduate school.
The dialogue was geared at encouraging old and incoming students get exposure to experts view on policy formulation, implementation and evaluation in the health context.