Development Partners COVID-19 Health Response Group meeting

The UN System in Namibia in collaboration with the National Planning Commission (NPC) convened a virtual meeting with Development Partners in an effort to scale-up coordination mechanisms to strengthen Namibia’s emergency preparedness and response to COVID-19 on 30th April 2020.

 A consensus was reached that smaller working groups were to be established among partners to streamline and coordinate support to Government in the following key areas:

• Socio – Economic Response and Recovery
• Health Response Group

During the COVID-19 Health Response virtual meeting, partners provided feedback on their current contributions in response to the crisis. The broad feedback from the partners indicated that support to the Government of Namibia spanned across all 9 pillars of the National Response Plan.

Dr. Nangombe, the Deputy Incident Manager from the Ministry of Health and Social Services (MOHSS) informed partners on the National COVID-19 Response, highlighting the current situation, gaps and challenges.

A discussion followed among the meeting participants on how to best support the response through improved resource mobilisation, enhanced collaboration and coordination. The meeting participants highlighted amongst others, the need for efficiency in response across all pillars, making best use of limited resources. There was also a unanimous call to ensure speed of action, as the cost of delayed action is high. The partners also discussed the need for the “coordination of essential services” pillar, the latest pillar added to the national response plan, to also be included for consideration among partners on possible area of support.

The Government of Namibia, through the Ministry of Health and Social Services expressed their gratitude,

“We appreciate the support we are receiving from our partners in this fight against COVID-19,” Dr. Nangombe said.

“The only way out is  to pull together,” reiterated Dr. Charles Sagoe-Moses, World Health Representative (WHO), who chaired the meeting.  Practical suggestions were made to operationalise agreed actions, with the UN playing a key role in convening and coordinating to ensure optimum efficiency.  The Health Response working group is scheduled to meet again in July.