Final Dissemination Meeting for short-term M&E Fellows 2016

Makerere University School of Public Health’s Monitoring and Evaluation Technical Support (METS) Program designed a short-term M&E fellowship program to reinforce the District and health facility capabilities in monitoring and evaluation. The Fellowship that targeted district biostatisticians and HMIS focal persons was held at Hotel Africana on 25th November 2016. The 30 Fellows from 15 districts in the 1st cohort was awarded completion certificates. The dissemination meeting was attended by representatives from the Ministry of Health, CDC, IPs, districts, MakSPH and METS.

Fellows pose with the the Chief Guest representative from CDC Uganda, Dr. Donna Kabatesi, Evelyn Akello the Program Manager METS and Program facilitators

The two-modular fellowship program was aimed at achieving the following:
1. Enhance M&E capacity of District Health Teams and health facilities to effectively plan, manage and report quality data for HIV programs
2. Supported the districts to develop HIV M&E plans based on the 5-year HIV/AIDS strategic plans
3. Strengthen QI along the Continuum of Response (COR) for HIV/AIDS
4. Re-established QI teams in all health facilities which provide ART and PMTCT services
5. Train 1,200 health facility staff in Quality Improvement principles
6. Onsite Quality Improvement mentorship visits to 30 VMMC sites
7. Supporting evidence-based policy development and advocacy for HIV programs
8. Come up with strategies for improved retention in care HIV-infected mothers on Option B+
9. Evaluation of strategies for improved pediatric outcomes among HIV exposed infants
10. Evaluation of models for linking HIV patients into chronic HIV care and treatment

Some of the facilitators of the M&E Fellowship Program
L-R: Ms. Josephine Connie Ninsiima, Mr. Ibrahim Lutalo, Mr. Isaac Sebuliba, Mr. Julius Sendiwala and Project Coordinator Dr. Simon Muhumuza

The meeting provided an opportunity for the fellows to disseminate their project results to a wider HIV/AIDS stakeholder forum. This involved sharing the project outcomes, best practices, lessons learnt and challenges in improving data quality for HIV/AIDS programs at district and health facility level. It is hoped that similar projects may be adopted and scaled nationally.