demographic trends: populations are ageing, and the number of people living with noncommunicable diseases and the consequences of injuries is increasing [1–3]. The health, social and economic consequences of these trends should serve as a call to policy-makers to invest not only in health services that reduce mortality and morbidity, but also in those that improve functioning and consequently w...

The UNDP report on the Millennium Development Goals, or MDGs (UNDP 2005), cautions that the Goals will not be met by 2015 in the most needy countries, and, in fact, warns that the situation in Africa may actually worsen. What can be done to secure some measure of success in the health-MDGs effort? Should strengthening health systems be regarded a ‘first-order’ goal within ‘higher-order’ MDGs to...

Q: How has WHO's approach to strengthening health systems changed? A: We surveyed our stakeholders in WHO departments, the regions and governments early on. This showed us where we should be headed and reflected a reaction to the direction under the previous leadership. They wanted WHO's Evidence and Information for Policy cluster to address the need for measurement , financing or human resourc...

Many Information and Communication Technology (ICT) systems are currently used to support Community Health Workers (CHWs) in impoverished populations. However, the majority of these systems are textbased, making them difficult to use in areas of low literacy. We have added multimedia to one such system, CommCare, to aid CHWs in counseling clients and promoting healthy behaviors in their communi...

Improving clinical and public health laboratories should be one of the main goals of strengthening health systems, rather than a desirable afterthought. In this respect, in July 2009, several African countries, donors, the World Health Organization (WHO), and implementing partners met in Kigali, Rwanda, to launch a program for strengthening laboratory management, with the aim to accelerate nati...

There is increased interest in strengthening health systems for developing countries. However, at present, there is common uncertainty about how to accomplish this task. Specifically, several nations are faced with an immense challenge of revamping an entire system. To accomplish this, it is essential to first identify the components of the system that require modification. The World Health Org...

Debates around health systems have dominated the international health agenda for several decades. A wealth of contributions has been made to define, describe and explain health systems through multiple conceptual frameworks proposed to date. The array of health systems frameworks arguably provides an opportunity for identifying different appropriate approaches to meeting various country-specifi...