Empowered Communities Activity

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The Activity will support health sector actors to increase utilization of quality health and nutrition services as stated in the Development Objective (DO) 4 of the USAID/Ethiopia Country Development Cooperation Strategy (CDCS) 2019-2024. The Activity will contribute to community engagement and empowerment and to social accountability efforts outlined by the Government of Ethiopia (GoE), and other sector actors to meet the ambitious goals outlined in the Health Sector Transformation Plan ( HSTP II 2020-2025 ) and the Health Extension Program (HEP) Roadmap ( HEP Roadmap 2020-2035 ). The HSTP II has 14 strategic directions including enhancing provision of equitable and quality comprehensive health services, ensuring community engagement and ownership, and strengthening governance and leadership, which are well aligned with this Activity. The Activity also focuses on NSAs and community structure/platforms (e.g Idirs, community care coalitions), capacity building to increase organizational capability (i.e., knowledge, skills, processes, systems, etc.) to engender effective, efficient, and sustainable institutions. The Activity will be implemented in up to 30 selected woredas (hereafter referred to as ‘district’) in three agrarian and one pastoralist regions of Ethiopia, namely Afar, Amhara, Oromia, and Southern Nations, Nationalities and People’s (SNNP). The Activity will build on the gains of USAID/Ethiopia historical investments through the USAID Transform: Primary Health Care (TPHC) and USAID Transform: Health in Developing Regions (THDR) activities. The Activity will also have strong links with existing USAID New Partnership Initiative EXPAND (NPI EXPAND) that focuses on social accountability interventions towards enhanced Family Planning, and Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health (FP/MNCH) services and builds the organizational sustainability of new and underutilized local entities. In addition, the activity facilitates leadership and capacity strengthening for productive engagement and collaboration among service users, service providers, and government officials to enhance service quality and responsiveness as well as demand.

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