Attachments
Somalia is committed to the achievement of UHC. The implementation of the EPHS 2020 is expected to address the burden of diseases responsible for the high morbidity, mortality and disability afflicting the Somali people, particularly the most vulnerable segments of our population, women, children, the internally displaced persons (IDPs) and the elderly.
The EPHS 2020 for Somalia is a product of intensive consultations between the Ministries of Health and the health partners across the country. It builds on experiences and learning from the implementation of the earlier version of EPHS developed in 2009, investigates experiences and lessons learned from countries in the continent and around the world who are facing similar social, political and economic circumstances, and emerging from decades of protracted conflict as Somalia.
The technical body of the EPHS 2020 is built upon analysis of the burden of diseases and the most recent Disease Control Priorities (DCP3), and it is anchored on the UHC compendium of the WHO, for which Somalia can be represented as one of the frontrunners in its implementation. It provides a platform for implementation of UHC which is crucial towards achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and a framework based on which, prospectively, policy and strategic decisions and priorities will be made.
Implementation of the 2009 EPHS was partial and lacked uniformity partly due to challenges related to coordination, health financing, health system capacity, security and access, and weak stewardship and oversight by health authorities. The implementing partners selected aspects of EPHS 2009 that are aligned with their fields of specialty (e.g. nutrition), funding opportunities and donor requirements – ease of demonstrating and attributing results – or funding priorities. This contributed to inequalities in service delivery, limited access to health services to the majority of rural, nomadic and displaced populations and fragmentation of health services. These were further exacerbated by poor health-seeking behaviour by the population, widespread poverty and low per capita expenditure on health and nutrition sector, estimated at US$ 11.2, in 2019.
In 2019, Somalia launched a roadmap towards UHC (2019-2023) as a more robust EPHS was required to reverse these trends and put the country on a progressive path towards achievement of SDGs by 2030.