Access to healthcare for vulnerable groups in West Africa

Our partners

Help is a non-governmental humanitarian aid organization. It has been supporting people in distress, regardless of origin, religion, or ideology, for more than 30 years. The major pillars of its work are emergency assistance, development aid, and rehabilitation projects. Help operates in many countries of the world thanks to private donations and funding from the German government, the European Union, the United Nations, and other international funding agencies.

 

The goal of the  University of Montreal Hospital Research Centre (CRCHUM) is to improve population health through a continuum of high-caliber university-based research. The Centre has more than 360 researchers and 450 students. Its global health research activities deal with topics related to the evaluation of health system transformations (service provision and mechanisms to improve access to services) and to public health programs worldwide aimed at analyzing the links between poverty and health and at reducing the burden of illness (HIV-AIDS, maternal mortality). Valéry Ridde is also a professor in the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine at the University of Montreal and a CIHR New Investigator(2010-2015).

The European Union is the foremost donor of humanitarian aid in the world. Together, the European Commission and the governments of the 27 member states fund more than 50% of all institutional humanitarian aid globally. ECHO is the European Community Humanitarian Office. The Office is made up of a multinational staff working in Brussels and in the field in nearly 40 offices set up in or near crisis zones. In Africa’s Sahel region, ECHO is conducting a far-reaching program, through a variety of NGOs and United Nations agencies, that involves a multi-year and multi-sectoral plan to overcome malnutrition, and the present partnership operates within the scope of that program. A video on the ECHO website shows the scientific results coming out of this partnership.

Burkina Faso’s Ministry of Health defines and directs health policy, which is supervised in the regions by the regional health departments (DRS) and implemented by the health districts (DS) and front-line healthcare centers, which are most often managed by nurses. The key partners in this project are the DRS of Sahel, the DSs of Dori and Sebba, and the community management committees (COGES) of the healthcare centers in these two districts, as well as their healthcare teams. These COGESs represent the people.