On 21-27 November 2017, the Global Health Cluster (GHC) held its third Joint Health Cluster Coordination Training for Health Cluster Coordinators (HCCs) and Public Health Information Service (PHIS) officers in Dakar, Senegal. The seven day training programme, designed by the GHC Capacity Building Task Team, the PHIS Task Team and other members of the GHC unit, combined both educational and practical sessions and ended with a two day joint simulation exercise. Through Health Cluster Coordination Training, the GHC seeks to increase the limited pool of competent Health Cluster personnel as part of a wider Health Cluster Capacity Development Strategy. The training was attended by 29 participants from 7 country offices, WHO Headquarters and WHO AFRO Regional Office.
This session marked the first time that the curriculum was delivered in French, an official language of 6 of the 23 currently active Country Health Clusters (Central Africa Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Mauritania, Niger). Prior to the training in Senegal, only 3 HCCs and 6 PHIS officers from the francophone clusters had undertaken the Health Cluster Coordination training, mainly due to language barriers. These numbers have since increased by 19 HCCs and one PHIS officer resulting in having 22 trained HCCs and 7 PHIS colleagues working in current clusters.
The outcome of the training programme was very promising, with the average improvement on the training questionnaire completed by participants at 31%. The participants rating of the training overall was 4.8 out of a maximum rating of 5, and they provided positive and constructive feedback throughout the training.
We would like to gratefully acknowledge funding and in-kind support from the WHO Country Office in Senegal, the WHO Office for Africa, the WHO headquarters, and the United States Agency for International Development’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (USAID/OFDA). We would also like to gratefully acknowledge the technical in-kind support from members of the Capacity Development Task Team and the PHIS Task Team.