Policy Brief Integrating Health in Relief and Development

The Integrating Health in Relief and Development (IHRD) Working Group is co-chaired by Scott Jackson, PATH and Mary Pack, International Medical Corps.
For more information, please contact: Danielle Heiberg Senior Program Associate InterAction dheiberg@interaction.org

January 2011

In a time of constrained resources, integrating health into relief and development is more critical than ever to meet our targets and increase impact. The integration of health interventions with relief and development can improve health outcomes and result in more cost-effective programming by enhancing efficiency, reducing duplication, and helping investments reach more people. Integrated health programs provide a broad spectrum of interventions and address the linkages between health and other sectors of development including water and sanitation, infrastructure planning, nutrition, agriculture, micro-finance and the environment. These comprehensive approaches focus on the prevention and treatment of prevalent diseases that have a major impact on health; strengthen health systems; and reduce inequity in access to quality health care.

1. Global health programs must be accountable to the communities that they serve. Donors and
implementing organizations should actively engage community members in designing, implementing and monitoring and evaluating strategies, policies and programs. Thorough outreach and the establishment of proper accountability mechanisms is essential to ensure full engagement of all civil society, and especially marginalized members of these communities. Progress towards universal health care coverage and equitable access to the underlying determinants of health, including clean water, adequate sanitation, a sufficient supply of nutritious food and safe housing, should be viewed as cornerstones of global health policy and interventions by the international community. Programs for global health that are implemented in relief environments should support links between interventions in humanitarian, recovery and longer-term development settings. Efforts taken during the relief phase should lay the foundation for health systems strengthening and establish the building blocks for a transition to development. Program indicators that enable policy makers, donors and practitioners to monitor the effectiveness of integrated relief and development programs should be adopted as part of an integrated framework for health and development. Civilian health programs in fragile states or regions of conflict should be driven by the health needs of the population and the development of systems required to meet them rather than to serve other objectives such as security or short-term stabilization. Global health programs should be innovative and utilize sustainable technologies appropriate for low resource settings. USAID innovation platforms for product and large scale production should be encouraged. Harmonization of aid should occur at the national level between bilateral, multilateral and other donors, in order to fully integrate health programs and leverage funding streams. Coordination and communication among public and private international donors is critical in order to utilize limited resources more efficiently, avoid program duplication and gaps and prevent added coordination burdens to host country governments and civil society. Building the capacity of the local health workforce is essential to the effective implementation of health programs and the strengthening of health systems. Efforts to increase the number of trained health workers as well as improve health worker retention, management, and distribution should be made in all phases of intervention: relief, recovery and development.

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