The Nepal high level delegation which was led by H.E. Mr Upendra Yadav, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Health and Population of Nepal and three members of the Nepal Parliamentarian of Federalism paid a visit to Ethiopia.

The Nepal delegation stayed in the country from 15 - 19 April 2019 and they visited the Ethiopian Health system to learn from Ethiopia’s experience on a federally structured health system. This experience sharing visit was aimed to overview overall administrative and political structure of Ethiopia with an emphasis of federalism focusing to the health system and to understand the processes used to design the federal structures and the impact on human resources management, oversight, accountability and financing in a decentralized system.
 

The delegation team started their mission by the introductory meeting with H.E. Dr Seharla Abdulahi, State Minister of Health-Operation and Dr. Abdurazak Gelgello, Deputy Head of Oromia Regional Health Bureau (RHB) at the Ministry of Health (MoH) Ethiopia and Oromia RHB Offices respectively. H.E. Mr Upendra Yadav, Deputy PM and MoHP of Nepal during the introductory briefing meeting at the MoH appreciated the Ethiopia team from MoH and WHO for organizing this important field visit and he revealed that Nepal which is in the transition to Federalism could learn much from this mission to manage the process in many aspects.

During the field visit, the delegation team met with the East Shoa zone health office colleagues where the presentation was made by the Zonal Health Bureau head which helped them to understand how the health system is coordinated at zonal level.  Visiting the national hub of the Ethiopia Pharmaceuticals Supply Agency (EPSA) was also part of the day two visit which helped the team to understand how the agency coordinates and manages the medical supply procurement and dissemination to different administrative level.

The third day was devoted to a field visit where H.E. the DPM and team visited Boset district and saw a primary hospital, a health center and a health post. Brief presentations and discussion were held on how Ethiopia is implementing its primary health service delivery in a decentralized context.

H.E. DPM also met H.E. Demeke Mekonnen, Deputy Prime Minister of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE) and discussed how the Ethiopian federal structure in health system functions.

The key officials’ delegation from Nepal completed their mission on day four and made the debriefing at the Ministry of Health to H.E. State Minister of Health-Programs, Dr. Lia Tadesse and MoH Directors.