WHO Building Blocks_Sacks

1. Beyond the Building Blocks:A
literature review
Emma Sacks
Community Health and Implementation Research Specialist,
MCSP

2. WHO Building Blocks

3. Are the blocks sufficient?
• “The six WHO building blocks or core
components describe the elements required for a
health system to function.”
World Health Organization, 2010
• In reality:
• Only shows some of the functions
• Built around funding streams
• Other than “health workforce,” ignores people and
institutions, key actors, processes and relationships

4. How can we improve on the building blocks?
• To better reflect relationships between health
system components
• To make the contributions of community
health more explicit
• To better guide:
• Planning
• Resource allocation
• Program implementation
• Global learning

5. Methods
• Reviewing the literature
• Starting with meta reviews, peer-reviewed
• Inclusion of project reports
• Convening of ‘practitioner-experts’
• Small working group based out of MCSP / CORE group
• Fall CORE group meeting 2014
• Spring CORE group meeting 2015 (YOU!)
• Iteration of the model-dialogue with broader set
of experts, including USAID, PMNCH, UN, Bank…

6. Working Diagram

7. Components of Health Systems
included in the review
• Community organizing and mobilization
• Community based service delivery
• Social capital
• Societal partnerships (multi-sectoral)
• Household production of health
• Social determinants of health
• Community based health information systems

8. How you can help us!
(aka activity guidance)
• Choose a rapporteur
• Use the framework as a starting point—
everything can change!
• Choose a component of the model (or as
much of it as you want) to discuss as a group
(maximum of 6 people)
• Change/add the blocks
• Draw the necessary connections between them
• Justify your changes/additions
• After 40 min, report back to the whole group

9. Beyond the Building Blocks:
Current work and future directions
Eric Sarriot,
Team Lead, Community Health and Civil Society Engagement,
MCSP

10. Where does this work fit?
• Bring focus and attention to Community
Health & neglected areas
• Communication and Advocacy -> Feed into
Global Discussions
• MCSP – USAID – OHS -> EPCMD Agenda
• WHO – PMNCH -> Global strategy

11. What’s on the Global Horizon
(1) Strategies

12. What’s on the Global Horizon
(1I) Evidence & Standards of Evidence
Focus Partners
Social and Behavioral
Interventions
WHO, USAID, PMNCH,
UNICEF, NORAD, MCSP, etc.
Community Health MCSP-JHU

13. ThankYou!
And Acknowledgements
• Work started with Alfonso Rosales, AlanTalens,
Joseph Petraglia following the CORE Fall
Meeting 2014 with Karen Cavanaugh (USAID),
Ngashi Ngongo (UNICEF) and Amalia Del Riego
Abreu (PAHO)
• MCHIP veterans: Henry Perry, Jim Ricca
• Thanks to Kath Shelley, Reeti Hobson and
AlishaWeisser for assistance on the literature
review
• Thanks to David Peters for insight
• Advancing Partners in Communities
An Emerging & Shared Agenda!

14. Thank you!
• Please fill out the handout and return to us
• Indicate if you’d like to be on an email list to
follow and contribute to this process
• Include any references / project experiences that
should be included
• Include any ideas for increasing global advocacy
and how the CORE Group can play a role in this
process

15. For more information, please visit
www.mcsprogram.org
This presentation was made possible by the generous support of the American people through the
United States Agency for International Development (USAID), under the terms of the Cooperative
Agreement AID-OAA-A-14-00028. The contents are the responsibility of the authors and do not
necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.
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