Past Symposium

First Symposium on CHW 2017

The first international symposium on Community Health Workers (CHWs) was held in Kampala, Uganda during 21-23 February 2017. The theme of the symposium was titled as "Contribution of Community Health Workers (CHWs) toward attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)". More than 450 people from 22 countries including researchers, academics, practitioners, policy makers, donors and students were participated in that event. The organizers were the School of Social Sciences Public Health team at Nottingham Trent University (NTU), Makerere University School of Public Health (MakSPH) and the Ugandan Ministry of Health (MOH).

Sub-themes of the symposium covered the followings:

1. CHWs programmes (past, present and future)

History and current state of CHWs programmes
Recruitment, retention and attrition of CHWs
Training models for CHWs programmes
Performance, motivation and satisfaction of CHWs
Coordination and supervision of CHWs
Gender and ethics in CHWs work
Community Health Extension Workers (CHEWs)
CHWs programmes across the world (Africa, Asia, America, Europe and Australia)
Challenges, lessons learnt and opportunities

2. CHWs and health systems

Leadership, governance and accountability
Human resources for health
Financing of CHWs programmes and sustainability
Medicines and health supplies
Health Management Information System (HMIS) and mobile health
Community health innovations
Delivery of health services
Research priorities and gaps

3. Role of CHWs in the SDGs era

Communicable diseases (malaria, pneumonia, diarrhoea, HIV/AIDS, TB and others)
Non-communicable diseases
Maternal, newborn and child health
Alcohol, drug and substance abuse
Sexual and reproductive health
Universal health coverage (UHC)
Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH)
Early warning and management of national and global health risks
Multisectoral collaboration

The symposium provided a platform for various stakeholders interested in CHWs to learn, share and network. The discussions of the symposium highlighted multiple SDGs: CHWs not only contribute to health and wellbeing (SDG 3), but also ending poverty (SDG 1) and hunger (SDG 2), reducing inequalities (SDG 10), and improving water and sanitation (SDG 6) and global health partnerships (SDG 17). It became clear that CHWs should be valued at the community level, by health professionals, and by policy makers. Besides, arrangements are needed to ensure the needs and concerns of CHWs reach the necessary authorities. Discussions also revealed that incentives are crucial to motivating CHWs, but may vary according to culture and contexts across countries. With this in mind, particular attention should be given to voluntary CHW programs. To further improve performance of CHWs, systemic health system challenges that have affected CHW programs for years must be addressed, particularly before new CHW programs are introduced.

More than 90% of symposium participants expressed a desire to have such an event every two years. Consequently, the Makerere University School of Public Health and partners including the Health Systems Global Thematic Working Group on Supporting and Strengthening the Role of Community Health Workers in Health System Development had begun to plan the next event only just after the 1^st International Symposium on CHW’s!!!