Stephanie Weber, MLI Program Officer

Welcome to a live blog from the MLI Learning Collaborative Forum in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The forum will take place over the next four days, ending Friday.

MLI works in five countries – Ethiopia, Nepal, Mali, Senegal, and Sierra Leone – and among the forum’s highlights will be presentations from senior officials at all five Health Ministries about how efforts to promote leaders has yielded results.

Expect blog posts on negotiation tips from Nepal, an update on Sierra Leone’s free health care initiative, Ethiopia’s new way of managing health care, Mali’s movement toward universal health care, and Senegal’s work in aligning donor priorities. The Ministries are part of a movement in the developing world toward more ownership and control of health programs, as opposed to donors setting priorities, representing a dramatic shift by both sides in the way aid development has traditionally worked.

At the opening of the forum, Dr. Kebede Worku, State Minister of the Federal Ministry of Health in Ethiopia, welcomed the group and said he looked forward to building relationships with other ministries and learning more about the strengths of other MLI programs. Worku also stressed the importance of country ownership of programs. 

At the end of the four-day conference, Ethiopian Health Minister Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is scheduled to talk about how his Ministry has been taking more control over its health programs.

Live-blog from Ethiopia:

 Part 2: ‘Its Always Good to Think Big’

Part 3: Mali’s Path to Community Health Insurance

Part 4: ‘A New Dawn’ in Health Care in Sierra Leone

Part 5: Want to Bargain? The Nepalis can Help

Part 6: From Mali to Nepal: The Trail of a Negotiator

Part 7: Ethiopia’s New Plan: ‘It’s going to Really Improve this Place’

Part 8: Ethiopia and the Importance of Family Planning

Part 9: Gang of Four: Table Talk with Reproductive Health Directors

Part 10: Ethiopia’s Tedros: Four Steps to Owning Health Programs

Part 11: ‘We Want to be Led”

Part 12: ‘We Became Beggars”

Forum Wrap-up, Part 1: Marty Makinen and Amanda Folsom

Forum Wrap-up, Part 2: Rosann Wisman

Photo credit Dominic Chavez.