Evaluation of Malawi’s Emergency Human Resources Programme

Abstract

In August 2009, the Government of Malawi, with technical and financial assistance from DFID, contracted Management Sciences for Health and Management Solutions Consulting (MSH/MSC) to undertake an independent evaluation of the six-year Emergency Human Resource Programme (EHRP). The EHRP was designed primarily to address the health crisis in Malawi largely caused by an acute shortage of professional workers in the public health sector. This intervention was implemented by the government with technical and financial assistance from the cooperating partners. Central to this commitment was the need to improve staffing levels and increase the production of health workers through a coherent package of financial incentives and investments in local health training institutions. The EHRP is one of six pillars of the Malawi Programme of Work and is administered by the MOH through a sector-wide approach, SWAp. The SWAp in Malawi is highly effective because of its high level of collaboration across all stakeholders. The EHRP, or Pillar 1, is monitored by a Technical Working Group drawn from the SWAp. The core objective of this evaluation was to assist the Government of Malawi and its partner, the Christian Health Association of Malawi (CHAM), to assess the implementation progress of the EHRP and take stock of its achievements against planned targets. The evaluation was also aimed at assessing the impact of the EHRP on health service utilisation and the costs of the Programme. Specifically, it was centred on five core interventions – known in the EHRP as elements – that the government and its cooperating partners had introduced under the EHRP. Based on analysis of the data, the evaluation team has documented results and lessons learnt from the Programme, and made evidence-based recommendations for strengthening Human Resources for Health (HRH) systems and practices in Malawi’s public health sector.