Officials at Nepal's Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP) want a systematic capacity enhancement plan to acheive the goals in Nepal's National Health Sector Programme-Implementation Plan 2 (NHSP-IP 2), which will guide the country's health sector activities until 2015.

Capacity enhancement increases technical skills of health sector workers, which can improve health outcomes in the long run. The MoHP recognizes that capacity enhancement happens constantly and therefore would like to devise a systematic approach to capacity enhancement that is tied to milestones in NHSP-IP 2.

Last month, MLI sponsored a seminar between Chris Potter and Richard Brough, authors of Systemic Capacity Building: A Hierarchy of Needs (Health Policy and Planning (2004) 19 (5)), and senior MoHP officials to begin the process of creating this plan. Brough and Potter introduced their framework for capacity development and facilitated a discussion on how their approach could be adapted to Nepal's health sector.

The week following the seminar, Dr. Babarum Marisini, Senior Public Health Administrator and Coordinator of the Health Sector Reform Section, presented key takeaways at Nepal's Joint Annual Review meeting, attended by key health sector stakeholders from government, NGOs, bilateral and multilateral international funders. Several international donors in attendance were excited about the MoHP's progress in capacity development and would like to support sector-wide capacity enhancement activities in the coming year.

MLI is a four-year program that seeks to strengthen the leadership capacity of ministries of health in Ethiopia, Mali, Nepal, Senegal, and Sierra Leone to advance policy in three interrelated areas: health financing for equity, donor harmonization in health, and reproductive health. It is a collaborative effort between the Results for Development Institute, the Aspen Institute’s Global Health and Development, and the Council of Women World Leaders.