1.5  Health Service Extension Programme

The Health Service Extension Programme, (HSEP) is an innovative, community-based programme that was first introduced in Ethiopia in 2003. This programme was launched after realising that the basic health services were not reaching the majority of the population. The objective of HSEP is to improve equitable access to mainly preventive health services through community (kebele) based services. These services all have a strong focus on health promotion and preventive health activities, as well as increased community health involvement. The principle behind this programme is to transfer ownership and the responsibility of maintaining health to individual households. This programme has required a sustained political commitment from the government and continued investment that has led to the construction of over 14,000 Health Posts and the training of 30,000 female Health Extension Workers (two for each Health Post) and their deployment in each village (Figure 1.4).

Figure 1.4  More than 30,000 female Health Extension Workers have been deployed. (Photo: Ali Wyllie)