Health
02 jul 2010
Below is an overview of the present status of Yemen's health sector and of donor activities.
The current situation
Most health policy documents, especially the five-year health development plans and the draft national health strategy (2010-2015), show that Yemen’s health sector faces multifaceted institutional capacity problems and challenges.
Yemen’s pressing institutional capacity shortages are primarily related to:
- leadership and governance
- strategic planning and management
- human resources development
- health service delivery systems
- monitoring and evaluation systems
- health information system capacity
- infrastructure shortages
The lack of management capacity is considered the key to strengthening the country’s health system and a top priority.
Donor activities
The Word Bank, the UN (WHO, UNFPA, UNICEF), the EU, the U.S., the Netherlands and the UK are the major donors of Yemen’s health sector.
- The World Bank is planning to support the health sector by focusing on the reduction of childhood and maternal mortality, on drugs procurement and on developing and strengthening the Monitoring and Evaluation capacity of the health system. Previously, between 2002 and 2009, the World Bank supported the health sector reform activities.
- The UN organizations WHO, UNFPA and UNICEF support, respectively, public health programmes, reproductive health and population, and child survival and development issues.
- The EU supports health system reform and reproductive health. The Netherlands and the UK (DfID) support reproductive health, with a focus on contraceptive commodity securing and Maternal and Neonatal Healthcare (MNH).
- Through USAID, the US supports health sector reform including strengthening management and basic health services.
- Through the KfW Development Bank, Germany supports reproductive health with a focus on social marketing of reproductive health services.
NICHE will ensure that its support to the health sector will be complementary to the initiatives of other donors.
