Term paper Review on the Challenges and Prospects of Health Policy Implementation: Ethiopian Context

      1.      Executive summary

Health policy is now becoming a central issue in many developing countries, as national health plans and programs are key policies for governments. It should be based on the needs of the population and should have the support of all actors. Health policy implementation can be facilitated by the development of clear guidance about expectations and the distribution of responsibilities for policy actions. In an attempt to foster the delivery of healthcare services, governments have been actively implementing healthcare policies. However, there are a number of challenges when implementing national health policies, especially in low-income countries like Ethiopia. Objective of this term paper is to assess the challenges and prospects of health policy implementation in the Ethiopian context.

It summarized that key challenges of the health policy implementation Ethiopia context involves Political instability, inadequate infrastructure and resources, inadequate funding, fragmented health system, a lack planning for policy implementation, a key human resource challenge, a lack of adequate training and staff capacity building, a lack of leadership, commitment, and ideology, lack stakeholder engagement, lack of implementation guidance and ongoing communication, lack of organizational culture, lack of accountability, lack of the monitoring and evaluation; weak inter-sectoral collaboration; inadequately managed urbanization and industrialization. However, it can summarize those prospects of the health policy implementation in the Ethiopia context along with their major activities: increased funding, strengthening of the primary healthcare system, and strengthening of partnerships; ensure community engagement and ownership; improve human resource development and management; strengthen governance and leadership; improve health infrastructure; improve traditional medicine; improving engagement of stakeholders in improving quality of care. It recommended that effective health policy implementation is critical and essential to achieving success of health policies outcome in Ethiopia. Finally, at national, regional and local levels, efforts will also be make to integrate and mainstream elements of the health policy within the policies and programs of all other sectors, fostering inter-sectoral collaboration. In require effort to understand how policy implementation occurs and how it can be improved provides suggestions for policy decision-makers at national and local levels to close the implementation gap.

Keywords: Challenge, Health policy, Prospect, Policy Implementation, Ethiopia.