2.5 Health Sector Development Programme

The Health Sector Development Programme (HSDP) was developed to implement the policies of the Ministry of Health, including sanitation and hygiene activities. There have been several iterations of the HSDP. HSDP IV, published in 2010, covered the period from 2010 to 2015. HSDP IV is a high-level strategic document that adopts several key principles, including:

• government leadership
• enhanced responsiveness to community health needs
• extensive consultation and consensus with stakeholders
• comprehensive coverage of priority health sector issues (MoH, 2010).

HSDP IV was preceded by HSDP I, II and III, which covered successive periods starting from 1997/8. HSDP II and III saw the development of the Health Extension Programme (HEP). In 2004 the Ethiopian government implemented the HEP as the main vehicle for reaching people in the rural areas of Ethiopia. Health Extension Workers (Figure 2.7) promote health at the kebele level by implementing 16 clearly defined health service packages. Seven of these packages are concerned with promotion of and improvements in hygiene and environmental sanitation.

Figure 2.7 Health Extension Worker advising a client.

The early successes of the HEP led to its expansion from rural agrarian communities into pastoral and agro-pastoral communities in 2006, and into urban communities in 2010. The Urban Health Extension Programme (UHEP) is now bringing the knowledge and awareness of hygiene and sanitation to town and city dwellers through the activities of urban Health Extension Workers.