Grant aids health care in Rwanda

Two companies with University ties will lead a new health care project in Rwanda through a grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

IntraHealth International Inc., a nonprofit affiliate of the University, has been awarded the Twubakane Decentralization and Health Project, a five-year, $34 million initiative.

Twubakane means “let’s build together” in the Kinyarwanda language, the common spoken language in Rwanda.

The term refers to the partnership being forged by project leaders and the Rwandan government.

The project will aid Rwanda in decentralizing and improving its health care system, said Roxanne Henderson, director of development and communications for IntraHealth.

Joining IntraHealth in the project are RTI International, a nonprofit based in Research Triangle Park, and Tulane University’s Payson Center for International Development and Technology Transfer.

“We put our best thinking together,” Henderson said. “The competition for this project was intense.”

Dr. Yvonne Sidhom, senior health services specialist for RTI, said her group will design, implement and monitor services.

Set to begin in late March, the project will focus on family planning, malaria treatment and prevention, nutrition issues, and child survival, Sidhom said.

“In Rwanda we have a minimum package of activities that are supposed to be in each hospital. We try to help each hospital and health center provide that minimum package,” she said.

USAID spokeswoman Susan Pittman said the agency relies on IntraHealth to deliver those goods.

“We make sure supplies are there at the local level,” Henderson said.

The project will continue the process of decentralizing health care in Rwanda, Henderson said.

When health care is available only in a central location, such as in the capital city, many people are left stranded without necessary services, she added.

“We’ll be helping the Ministry of Health to plan and budget, and at the same time helping the administrative districts so that the community will start being involved in these services,” Sidhom said.

Henderson said IntraHealth has a variety of ideas of how to bring the community into the project.

“We’ve proposed a number of ways to involve local (nongovernmental organizations), not just American groups,” she said.

A challenge of the project is to combat the legacy of genocide.

In 1994, an estimated 800,000 Rwandans were killed in three months.

“(Rwandans) want decentralization that hasn’t been implemented very well, especially after the genocide,” said Sidhom.

IntraHealth has worked on other projects in Rwanda for several years. The last project, PRIME II, was focused on the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS, said Henderson.

USAID estimates that more than 565,000 people in Rwanda are infected with HIV/AIDS, including 65,000 children.

IntraHealth worked within the UNC School of Medicine for 24 years as Intrah until being incorporated as an independent nonprofit in 2003.

RTI was incorporated in 1959 and has more than 2,500 employees in 30 countries.

“This is our first bilateral grant at the county level,” Henderson said. “This project is exciting both for us and for the University.”

 

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