Addressing the needs in terms of geographic information and GIS capacities to support HIV/AIDS monitoring, evaluation and response in Malawi

The result of the Geographic Information System (GIS) capacity and data analysis conducted in Malawi in July 2006 in the context of the joint project: "Promoting equity and a health systems approach towards treatment access and responses to HIV and AIDS in Southern Africa" (World Health Organization (WHO), REACH Trust Malawi / Southern African network on Equity in Health (EQUINET)) (see below) clearly demonstrated that some important data gaps would need to be covered before being able to measure the availability and accessibility coverage offered in the country in terms of HIV/AIDS care.

This report as well as a subsequent visit organized in April 2007 also demonstrated that the GIS capacities and skills available in the country could be leveraged and the availability and quality of geographic information improved if the different institutions involved in the collection, management and maintenance of this type of information would be working more closely.

A meeting has therefore been organized by the Ministry of Health of Malawi Malawi with support from Reach Trust and the World Health Organisation (WHO) took place at the REACH Trust office in Lilongwe, Malawi on 7 September 2007 to address the needs in terms of geographic information and GIS capacities to support HIV/AIDS monitoring, evaluation and response in Malawi (see report and slides below).

The principal outcomes of this meeting have been the identification of specific tasks aiming at

• preparing the data necessary for measuring HIV/AIDS population coverage

• supporting the preparation of the 2008 population census

• creating an health facility registry for the country

The participants also expressed their willingness to see this process going beyond HIV/AIDS and even health end up in a process similar to the one that has been initiated in Zambia for the generation of a joint proposal that would not only serve to find fund in a more coordinated way but would also leverage the capacities and skills existing in the country, set the standards to be used by all institutions in order to improve: data quality, compatibility (interoperability), documentation (metadata), access and use and establish the process(es) that would insure the update of each layer.

Documents

- Measuring availability and accessibility coverage. Result of the GIS capacity and data availability analysis: Malawi 

Meetings

  - Addressing the needs in terms of geographic information and GIS capacities to support HIV/AIDS monitoring, evaluation and response in Malawi (Lilongwe, 7.10.2007)

            - Report  

            - Slides   

 Teleconferences

- 12 December 2007 (NSO, SD, WHO)                      

- 19 May 2008 (Health group)                                      

- 4 June 2008 (NSO; SD; NRA; WHO)                       

- 16 July 2008 (NAC, NSO, NRA, UPU, WHO)