Excerpt and Photo from peacecorps.gov
Tafea Provinicial Health Services, the branch of Vanuatu’s Ministry of Health (MOH) responsible for planning and managing public health services in the country’s southernmost province, wants to better support its 33,000 residents. There was just one challenge: the team didn’t have a tool to accurately monitor and evaluate the impact of their current activities. These activities include supervisory visits, public health services, and local curative and corporate services. Without an effective M&E tool, Tafea Provinicial Health Services (TPHS) couldn’t identify areas that could be improved or expanded.
”We don’t have a standard assessment template or community health checklist template to use during our provincial supervisory visits to health facilities. Due to time constraints, flight restrictions in other countries due to COVID-19, and limited resources, we sought technical assistance from Peace Corps Vanuatu,” explained TPHS’s provincial health administrator, Jerry Iaruel.
TPHS created a 27-week-long Virtual Service engagement, which would connect Jerry and TPHS’s public health manager, Lolyne Jeremiah, with American Virtual Service Participants who had experience designing, implementing, and operating M&E tools.