Background
Population Services International (PSI) Ethiopia, in partnership with JSI and the Ministry of Health (MOH), is preparing to implement a three-year project to strengthen RMNCHN and malaria service delivery through enhanced community engagement using the Village Health Leader (VHL) model. The RMNCHN + Malaria Project aim to strengthen the continuum of care and accelerate improvements in maternal, newborn, and child health outcomes across target regions and woredas. The project will be implemented in eight regions: Oromia, Amhara, South Ethiopia, Tigray, Sidama, Central Ethiopia, Southwest Ethiopia and Somali covering a total of 100 woredas.
To ensure an evidence based and context responsive rollout, a pre implementation readiness assessment was conducted to finalize woreda selection. The assessment confirmed the selection of 101 woredas: Oromia (36), Amhara (28), Tigray (9), South Ethiopia (11), Somali (6), Sidama (10) and Afar (01). Of these, approximately 70 woredas are without established the new community engagement structure (CE) including VHLs and 30 have the CE structure along with VHLs in place. Additionally, approximately 48 woredas were classified as having high or moderate malaria risk, underscoring the importance of integrating malaria strengthening within the initiative.
