EAC, USAID launch project on Cross-Border Health Integrated Partnership

Karen Freeman, USAID/Kenya and East Africa Mission Director.

A five-year project on Cross-Border Health Integrated Partnership (CB-HIPP) has been established to extend integrated health services in strategic border areas and other transport corridor sites.

The brainchild of the East African Community (EAC) Secretariat and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), it is among efforts to achieve an AIDS-free generation.

The project’s launch took place yesterday at the EAC Headquarters in Arusha.
It is also supported by the  US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and Trade Africa that will donate over US$1 billion.
It is part of the US Government investment in the region and efforts led by the EAC to safeguard the health of people living, working and traveling along transport corridors and cross-border sites.

"As populations in cross-border towns increasingly move across the region, they become vulnerable to infectious diseases which, without proper treatment, can easily spread along the transport corridors," said Karen Freeman, the USAID/Kenya and East Africa Mission Director.

She went on to say: "CB-HIPP will encourage the civil society, governments and Regional Economic Communities to expand health services, restrict the spread of HIV and other infectious diseases as well as bring together social structures and grassroots organisations to implement HIV prevention activities."

It targets key populations, including female sex workers, men having sex with men, drug users, truck drivers, migrant workers, people living with HIV and other vulnerable community members.

The CB-HIPP will provide outreach and stamina to the burgeoning population and accelerated mobility of East African citizens. It will further serve as a platform for the US Government to strengthen its joint and strategic partnership with the EAC.

For his part, Dr Richard Sezibera, the EAC Secretary General, said: “Our partnership with the US Government will continue to be expanded and strengthened through mutual development and US donor funding of our programmes.

“CB-HIPP also provides an opportunity for the EAC to conduct strategic  discussions on joint priorities which will inform the upcoming 5th EAC Strategy (2017-2021) and the USAID Regional Strategy (2015-2020) under development."

The CB-HIPP is designed to extend quality integrated health services to strategic border areas and other transport corridor sites in the East, Central and Southern Africa region.

In addition to service delivery focused on key and vulnerable population, the project recognises the need for alternative health financing to increase uptake and sustainability of service within an enabling policy environment.
It also highlights the challenges and opportunities that they present to the health sector.

CB-HIPP is a reflection of the growing collaboration between the EAC and the US Government to address shared priorities.