Project News

In Vanuatu, on the 9th of June, the first meeting of the Joint Coordinating Committee (JCC) for the project was held in MOH, Port Vila. The committee is chaired by the Director General of Health, Mr. Mark Bebe, and consists of Human Resource Development Manager, Director South Health Care, Principal of Nursing School, Head of Nursing Council, Shefa Health Manager, Representative of JICA Vanuatu Office, and JICA experts. Besides members, relevant parties including WHO, peace-corps, JOCV participated in the meeting as observers.

The project team explained the project outlines, project modalities, and the annual activity plan for 2011-2012. Mr. Bebe gave an additional explanation on the mechanism of supervision. It was followed by a fruitful discussion among participants. Participants agreed with and supported the project theory and expressed importance of enhancement of supervision mechanism. However, they also agreed with the fact that it needs contrivances in establishing it to fit actual situation in Vanuatu. It is because there are serious shortages of human resources, fund, time, and management skills in health system of Vanuatu. As one of strategies suggested from the discussion, it was emphasized importance of inter-organizational cooperation among MOH, Provincial Health offices, and donors in order to maximize the use of opportunities and limited resources.