Strategic Affairs Executive Office

Strategic Affairs Executive Office (SAEO)

Strategic Affairs Executive Office (SAEO) is one of the work streams in the Ministry to realize the principles of One Plan, One Budget, and One Report within the health sector and to ensure sustainable health financing and efficient utilization of resources through informed decision making. The Executive Office has four teams: Health Information and Statistics Team, Plan, Budget, Monitoring and Evaluation Team, Grant and Project Management Team, and Health Economics, Financing and Public Private Partnership PPP Team.

SAEO aspires to achieve the following objectives:

• Promote culture of evidence-based planning, monitoring and decision making within the health sector to drive improvement in health system performance and thereby improve health outcomes.
• Identify funding gaps, map resources, and mobilize resources for priority health system investments.
• ensure efficient utilization and equitable allocation of existing resources and guide efforts to increase financial risk protection through grant management practices.
• A focal unit for Development Partners coordination to strengthen harmonization and alignment among stakeholders of the health sector.
• Engage private for profit and non-profit stakeholders in fostering a shared vision and agenda in health.
• Harness the potentials of private sector engagement in health sector and facilitate for establishment of enabling environment for private sector engagement in health.

Vision: To see a healthy, productive and prospers society through evidence-based planning, budgeting, and decision-making practices.

Mission:

To advance culture of evidence informed decision making to continually improve health system performance in delivering quality health services for all. To this end, the executive office institutionalize One Plan, One Budget, and One Report principles within the health sector, prepares the sector’s strategic and operational plans through a participatory process; implement robust health information system (HIS) and promote use of information for decision making; identify resource gaps and mobilize resources for priority health programs and emergency responses; synthesize evidences on health economics and financing to ensure equitable resource allocation and efficient utilization; and strengthen harmonization and alignment of stakeholders of the health sector. It also ensures effective private sector engagement.

Role and responsibilities: the SAEO has a major responsibility of running the health sector planning, budgeting, resource mobilization, monitoring, evaluation and harmonization and alignment activities as described below.

• Prepare strategic and operational plan: The executive office develops health sector strategies and plans in alignment with the country’s long term strategic plans and global goals. The executive office spearheads the preparation of strategic and operational plans of the sector at all levels of the health system through employing a participatory process to engage all stakeholders and thereby carve out one harmonized plan for the sector.
• Implement robust health information system: the executive office is responsible for developing, testing, and implementing health information systems poised to generate and ensure access to quality data at all levels. It will also strive to foster culture of evidence informed decision making to continually improve data quality and improve health system performance and thereby improve quality and equity of health services. The executive office also identifies priority health information sub-systems for digitization and develop requirements for software development and test developed software’s; lead the implementation of health information sub-systems at all levels of the health system; and strengthen the governance of HIS to ensure coordination of efforts.
• Monitoring: one of the key responsibilities of the executive office is to ensure routinization of performance monitoring to drive continuous improvement in health system performance. This requires implementing various mechanisms and establishing platforms to monitor progresses against targets in the annual and strategic plans. Monitoring involves performance reviews, supervisory visits, routine data analysis, generation, use and dissemination of information products to reach relevant actors of the sector with information.
• Evaluation: This is one of the other key roles the executive office plays in coordination with other offices in the ministry, agencies, and development partners. The executive office leads various evaluations to measure outcomes of health sector strategic plan. The executive office coordinates major evaluations including the Annual Review Meetings (ARM), Joint Review Mission (JRM), Mid-Term (MTR) and Final Evaluation of strategic plans as well as CSO projects. Moreover, the office collaborates with relevant bodies to conduct implementation research and also proactively engage in national level surveys, surveillances and other research activities including NHA assessment and reports.
• Resource mobilization: the executive office maps stakeholders of the health sectors based on their thematic areas and implementation sites, map the resources allocated from all stakeholders and leverage resources for priority health programs and emergency responses. Moreover, the office proactively mobilizes resources, prepare concept notes, explore options and solicits resource and implements systems to track and manage pledged funds.
• Grant and project management: the executive office coordinate and administer Treasury budget, grants, and projects; and serves as a liaison between MOH, MOF, Development Partners, and stakeholders. The office delivers capacity building activities on grant management and CSOs management; and it is also responsible for responding to inquiries in the areas of treasury budget, grant management and CSO projects.
• Strategic and policy insight for sustainable financing: the executive office design and implement different types of financial and economic analysis to make evidence-based resource allocation, distribution, and utilization. The office works to continually monitor the national health accounts, public expenditure review for health, fiscal space analysis for health, strategic costing, efficiency analysis and economic evaluations etc. The office further ensures the Health Care Financing Strategy implementation with the main objective of reducing out of pocket expenditure through health insurance system.
• Private sector engagement: Universal health coverage cannot be achieved without effective engagement of private sector to the health system. Accordingly, SAEO is harnessing the power in mobilizing private capital through private sector engagement. The executive office aims the private sector engagement to ensure access and provision of quality health services, efficiency improvement through effective coordination between public and private sectors to maximize benefits of existing assets while reducing duplication. All healthcare providers should deliver quality health services that conform to national standards.
• Harmonization and alignment: based on the Paris Declaration and other international declarations to enhance aid effectiveness and the need to ensure efficient and effective utilization of resources, the executive office works to engage all stakeholders including the private sector in planning, budgeting, implementation, monitoring and evaluation processes within the health sector. In doing so, the executive office works to ensure coordination among stakeholders to avoid duplication of efforts and ensure harmony and forge alignment of the stakeholders’ efforts to the priorities of the government. Guided by the Health Sector Harmonization and Alignment Manual, the executive office utilizes the national Joint Steering Committee (JSC), Joint Core Coordinating Committee (JCCC), Joint Consultative Forum (JCF) and analogues regional platforms to engage and foster coordination among stakeholders. Furthermore, the executive office organizes and chair regular Healthcare Financing Technical Working Group that helps to determine health financing priorities and monitor their implementations.