The Community Health Units for Universal Health Coverage (CHU4UHC) Platform, a collaborative partnership aimed at strengthening community health services in Kenya, recently held a Co-creation workshop at Ciala Resort in Kisumu from April 4th to 5th, 2024.

The Co-creation Workshop aimed to assess the platform’s achievements, facilitate collaborative co-creation for joint financing, and strategize for upcoming activities in the next phase. The workshop highlighted notable accomplishments, defined strategies and priority interventions, and strengthened partnerships among developmental stakeholders, fostering increased collaboration and synergy for the CHU4UHC platform.

Living Goods was one of the community health partners that joined the exciting co-creation session that will steer a path for funding community health projects in the next 5 years. The CHU4UHC platform was created through a partnership with the Ministry of Health (MoH) and has been instrumental in supporting the implementation of community health services at national and county government levels.

The platform has a clear vision to bolster all seven strategic directions outlined in the Community Health Strategy 2020-2025, and it has been instrumental in driving forward efforts to achieve comprehensive and high-quality community health service coverage across Kenya.

Mrs. Mary Muriuki the Principal Secretary Ministry of Health officiated the workshop. She noted that currently 90,000 CHPs are fully digitized and delivering community health service through eCHIS mobile app. CHPs registered 4.5million households approximately 50% of the households in Kenya. Ps. Muriuki also acknowledged the platform’s advocacy efforts that have not only succeeded in incorporating CHS and PHC into political agendas but also played a pivotal role in the enactment of the PHC Act 2023. These initiatives are part of a broader strategy to ensure a competent, well-trained health workforce capable of delivering quality services across Kenya.

Kisumu County briefly shared their experience and the foundation for a strong community health system. The County believes that to have effective service delivery at the community level, the CHPs have to be properly trained, equipped renumerated and well supervised – a foundational step to build their capabilities which can be realized leveraging digital-.

Dr. Gregory Ganda, CECM for Health Kisumu County, said, “Since getting into a co-financing partnership with Living Goods to improve our community health system, we have been able to reduce maternal mortality by 30%. We have also seen marked improvement in the quality of real-time data for decision-making, which has enhanced efficiency and effectiveness in supporting supervision and performance of CHPs and CHAs.”

Maureen Opiyo, Community Health focal person, Kisumu County, said, “Since adopting and utilizing eCHIS, we have been able to save 10 million from the printing of hardcopy data collection and reporting tools, i.e., from 15 million in 2020 to 5 million in the year 2023”. The data has enabled the county to identify 40,000 indigents who are now receiving regular healthcare support.

The workshop brought together donors and implementing partners in the community health space to strategize on the delivery of sustainable healthcare under the theme “Strategic Alliances for the Delivery of sustainable Afya Nyumbani: Beyond a Remunerated, skilled, and Digitized Community Health Workforce through the Primary Health Care approach.”

CHU4UHC leverages support from the Johnson and Johnson Center for Health Worker Innovation and the Elma Philanthropies to advance its objectives. Participants in the workshop included Amref Health Africa, Lwala Community Alliance, LVCT, Financing Alliance for Health, ENAI Africa, Medic, UNICEF, Ministry of Health’s Division of Community Health (DCH), USAID and implementing partners like Village Reach, Medtronics Lab, InSupply Health, CESOA, CHIC, World Bicycle among other partners.