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Gavi CEO Dr Seth Berkley and Aspen Institute Vice President of Policy Programs Peggy Clark. Credit: Gavi/2017/Isaac Griberg.
Geneva, 24 October 2017 – Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and the Aspen Institute have joined forces to strengthen national leadership, management and coordination of Malawi’s immunisation programme through the Aspen Management Partnership for Health (AMP Health). The partnership will improve managerial capacity to support Gavi’s mission to ensure that every child in Malawi is protected with life-saving vaccines.
In 2016-2020, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance aims to immunise 300 million children worldwide, saving 5-6 million lives. Achieving this goal requires effective planning, implementation and monitoring of immunisation programmes. At the same time, immunisation teams in Ministries of Health are often inadequately resourced presenting an opportunity for improvement in management practices.
Strengthening country management and coordination of immunisation programmes
Throughout 2016, Gavi began to roll out a series of interventions aimed at strengthening Expanded Programme for Immunization (EPI) teams and national coordination forums. This included embedding peer coaches within the EPI teams in Malawi and Papua New Guinea, for example. This initiative is run in partnership with the Aspen Management Partnership for Health and Dalberg Global Development Advisors. We also developed a set of tools and training courses to help strengthen the capacity of coordination forums.
A new training programme for EPI managers will combine a mentoring component with online learning and in-person group sessions. We will further boost the management capacity of EPI teams by funding critical positions for a time-limited period.
Find out more in our Annual Progress Report section
The partnership between Gavi and the Aspen Institute seeks to address these challenges by embedding a management partner into Malawi’s immunisation team, who will coach staff and build capacity to improve the performance of the immunisation programme.
“At Gavi we know that effective management of immunisation programmes is key to building strong health systems and extending those systems to reach all children who desperately need them”, said Dr Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi. “Our partnership with the Aspen Institute is one of many innovative investments in effective management that Gavi is rolling out. Aspen’s leadership and management expertise will be an important boost to our mission to ensure no child goes without lifesaving vaccines”, he added.
The partnership between Gavi and the Aspen Institute will build on the experience of AMP Health. AMP Health is a program of the Aspen Global Innovators Group working with ministries of health to build stronger leadership and management practices through real-time skills transfer, relevant training, and a platform for cross-country sharing of best practices. AMP Health currently works in Kenya, Malawi and Sierra Leone.
"The Aspen Institute's mission is to develop values-based leadership, which is critical to health systems facing grave challenges like Ebola and other diseases which can be prevented through immunisation," said Aspen Institute Vice President of Policy Programs, Peggy Clark. "AMP Health's innovative partnership will improve the health and well-being of many living in the hardest to reach parts of the world."