Ministry of Health through its Community Health program in Collaboration with the International Rescue Committee, USAID, Last Mile Health, and Community Safety Initiative has finally closed the USAID Community Health Activity Project in Liberia. The closing event was held on January 22, 2025, at the Ministry of Health drawing together key stakeholders and partners to grace the occasion. The event featured the certification of over 20 healthcare service providers for their Exemplary contributions and the successful implementation of USAID founded CHA project. Those certificated include: Dr. Lorraine C. Cooper, county Health Services Director, Patrick Konwloh -Director, HIS, George F. Tamatai – Community Health focal person, and Josephine F. Gbayeah- Module lead for child health among several others gathered from USAID’s four implementation counties.
Over the past few years, the CHA project was implemented by the International Rescue Committee and the consortium of partners, Last Mile Health, Community Health (LMH), Community Safety Initiative (CSI), and Development Education Network of Liberia (DEN-L).
The USAID Community Health Activity Project impacted Liberia in several key areas of Health Services, it scaled up the CHA services in all hard-to-reach communities under 135 Health Facilities in 26 districts across the four implementation counties, Increased the number of Community Health Assistants (CHAs) from 568 to 1381 in the four implementation counties, Reduced the CHA to population ratio from 1:603 to 1:316 which is in alignment with the national community health policy (1:350) and Increased access to health care services in communities beyond 5 km from the health facilities allowing caregivers to seek care early for children. The project also strengthened the supply chain system for community service providers promoted transparency and security, Enhanced the trust of caregivers, and boosted the confidence of CHAs the National Public Health Institute of Liberia now has an electronic surveillance system that supports real-time reporting of syndromic triggers at the community level something that was obtained through the CHA Project. Speaking during the event, Dr. Catherine T. Cooper, the chief medical officer of Liberia extended sincere thanks to the US government and its people for their enormous contribution to the health and welfare of the people of Liberia. ” We have seen the continuous commitment of our sister nation to support us in our plight to ensure universal access to health care services for our most vulnerable populations. This project has helped us to strengthen the National Community Health Program and our county teams’ ability to reach communities that are beyond the 5km radius of the health facility.” Dr. Cooper emphasized.
” USAID support to strengthening the partnership between government, vulnerable communities, and non-governmental organizations has come a long way along with the support to Liberia’s bold reforms to revitalize primary health care at the community level. Since the government institutionalized the National Community Health Program (NCHP), USAID-founded projects have always supposed one of the highest numbers of community health workers, over 1400 CHAs and 150 Community Health services supervisors ( CHSSs) in Bong, Lofa, River Gee, and Grand Kru counties and these Community workers have supported the government’s efforts to bring primary health care lifesaving preventive, promotive, and Curative efforts to vulnerable Liberians living in remote communities away from health facilities.” She further noted. The chief medical officer affirmed MOH’s commitment to taking ownership and working collaboratively to maintain the achievements brought by the USAID Community Health Activity, thereby anticipating ongoing partnership with USAID as the ministry advances toward the shared goal of self-reliance in healthcare. The USAID Community Health Activity is USAID Liberia’s flagship community health program and fits within a greater framework of planned development priorities that seeks to strengthen health, nutrition, and water, sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) systems at national and sub-national levels, to attain this intermediate result, the USAID CHA worked to strengthen the Liberian community health system to provide healthcare services in hard to reach areas while transferring the national Community Health Program ownership to the government of Liberia. The USAID Community Health Activity team worked with MOH to improve access to and quality of essential health services and scale up COVID-19 immunization rates, IRC implemented the USAID CHA with the goal of increasing the coverage of community health assistance in underserved districts and communities in Lofa, Bong, River Gee, and Grand Kru counties.