Stakeholders agree that Urban Primary Health Care Sector Development project must meet needs of urban slum-dwellers

The Inception Workshop on the Urban Primary Health Care Sector Development Project / UPHCP-II (TA 7655-BAN): Health Sector Design was held at Ruposhi Bangla Hotel, Dhaka, Bangladesh on 25 August 2011.

The workshop was co-chaired by Mr. Abu Bakar Siddique, Project Director of UPHCP-II, and Mr. Sayed Mahboob Hasan, Additional Secretary of Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives (MOLGRDC), who was also the Chief Guest.

The event gathered stakeholder comments on the draft Inception Report prepared by the TA Team led by Ms. Corazon A. Posadas, PRIMEX Health Financing Specialist. It also obtained feedback on the situational analysis, project design options, and modality of the proposed project.

The project is one of the largest public-private partnerships (PPPs) in delivering primary health care (PHC) in South Asia. It was launched to improve the health status of the poor living in urban areas and is largely aimed at standardizing and changing the means of health services provision in urban areas.

Key Agreements

Discussions focused on seven areas – urbanization; major socioeconomic trends; health status of the target population; policy, institutional, and financial aspects of PHC; status of health services and facilities; health management systems; and project management. Major agreements included the following:

  1. One of the project priorities will be to respond to the need for effective PHC services and facilities. The project should be more people-oriented and designed to meet the requirements of urban slum dwellers, who should be able to easily access health services and avail of user-friendly facilities.
  2. The project needs to be flexible in its implementation and, at the same time, establish accountability through an effective performance-based bonus system. To achieve this, it will be critical to build the capacity of the city corporations (CCs) and their partners clearly define the delegation of authority. The TA Team also has to strengthen relevant management systems (i.e., finance, procurement, and monitoring and evaluation systems) at the project implementation units (PIUs) and in partner NGOs.
  3. Participants generally agreed that PPP is an appropriate model to be adopted and that NGOs with extensive experience in its implementation be retained for specific modalities that will be developed under the Project.