A True Milestone
US Ambassador Michelle Gavin and Ms. H. Mbulai, of the Ministry of Local Government, during the commemorative event.
If you’ve been following news of I-TECH Botswana in these pages, you’ll have celebrated with I-TECH and partners as the US government-sponsored district-level Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Officers program has flourished, providing improved, much-needed health data for crucial health decisions at the local and national level. Many of you will have read our interview with Thuso Ernest, one of the dedicated young M&E officers whose tireless efforts have helped to make the program a success.
Now, I-TECH is pleased to announce that the program has been officially transitioned to the Botswana Ministry of Local Government (MLG). This week, M&E program partners, including members of the MLG and staff from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Botswana, the National AIDS Coordinating Agency (NACA), I-TECH, and US Ambassador to Botswana Michelle Gavin gathered in Gaborone for an event to commemorate this success. The day featured several eloquent speeches and was covered by local media and press.
The success and transition of the program mark a tremendous accomplishment for I-TECH, the MLG, and the dedicated cadre of local M&E officers. I-TECH would like to extend warmest congratulations and thanks to all who have worked to build this powerful and innovative program. As CDC Botswana noted in a recent press release, the M&E project is “a true example of how a U.S. government funded project can successfully be transitioned to the Botswana government.”
About the Program
In 2007, after recognizing that the data flowing from Botswana’s local, regional, and national health programs was not of sufficient quality to support data-driven policy and planning decisions, the Botswana Ministry of Local Government partnered with other agencies and funders to improve data quality. Together, they built a new profession in Botswana’s public sector: a cadre of government officers specializing in research methods, data collection, and analysis (a group of skills called “monitoring and evaluation,” or M&E). Because Botswana lacked experienced M&E professionals, forty-four new University of Botswana graduates in the social sciences—most of them excellent students, but with little or no work experience—joined the group, becoming Botswana’s first public sector “Monitoring and Evaluation Officers.”
After receiving training in an intensive I-TECH program, these new officers were placed across Botswana in the offices of District AIDS Coordinators and District Health Management Teams. Mentorship and ongoing training from I-TECH supported the officers to grow into the jobs they had been assigned, and soon they were strengthening Botswana’s health system in tangible ways.
Read more about I-TECH’s work in Botswana.
A brief introductory section of a video on the program can be watched on Vimeo.com. For more information about this initiative, or the video, contact I-TECH Botswana.
