Message-ID: <s2466467.011@MSH.ORG> Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 10:18:41 -0500 From: Sylvia Vriesendorp <mailto:SVRIESENDORP@MSH.ORG> Subject: Community Management: Invitation to Participate To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
This message has been cross-posted.COMM-MANAGE: An Electronic Conference on Community Management of Health Services, September 30 - October 31, 1996
The Family Planning Management Development (FPMD) project of Management Sciences for Health (MSH) is coordinating an electronic conference on community management of health services. When we think of community management, we think of the actual day-to-day management activities involved in running health services--activities such as financial and personnel management and procurement of equipment and supplies. This would imply significant control by the community over the financial, human and material resources involved in running the services.
This raises many questions: who in the community can be entrusted with these tasks? Do they need training? What kind, by whom, and for how long? Should the funding agency let go of considerable control? Who is held accountable to who? What if the community elite's priorities clash with those perceived by the funder? What if there are political factions in the community, using the development services to fight local battles? What if..what if????
We invite you to tell us your community management stories. Real stories about how these questions were or were not relevant in practice, and what other, unforeseen questions came up. We are collecting these stories to take with us to a meeting of the Francophone Regional Advisory Committee (FRAC) in Bamako, where we will meet with some 45 colleagues from French-speaking African and Caribbean countries to talk about community management of health services. The FRAC is a group of senior-level family planning managers and policy makers of public and private sector family health programs representing some 15 Francophone countries in North, West and Central Africa and Haiti. Since its establishment in 1987, this group has met once a year to discuss issues of common interest that relate directly to their task of improving family planning program performance in their respective countries.
The conference will begin on September 30, with an initial posting from the moderator to open discussion.
To subscribe to the conference, send an e-mail to: mailto:majordomo@mail.msh.org leave the subject line blank Type: subscribe COMM-MANAGE
FPMD is a worldwide cooperative agreement between Management Sciences for Health and the US Agency for International Development (USAID). FPMD's purpose is to promote the institutional development and strengthen the management capabilities of public and private family planning organizations in order to enhance the quality, coverage, and sustainability of their services.
To subscribe, send an e-mail to mailto:majordomo@mail.msh.org Leave the subject line blank Type in the message: subscribe COMM-MANAGE
For information, contact: mailto:owner-comm-manage@mail.msh.org