Description of Session
DHIS2 was rolled out nationally in Angola during 2018, and all 162 Ministry of Health (MoH) municipalities are now able to directly capture monthly reports from facilities in the national DHIS2 instance. However, provisioning municipal offices with internet access proved to be a challenge. Although mobile internet is now available in all municipalities in Angola, ensuring that all MoH offices remained connected proved difficult: - Procurement of data recharges for every municipality each month was a complex logistical exercise, and any delays in procurement usually led to delays in data entry. - Internet access was tied to specific SIM cards and USB devices (dongles), meaning that often only one staff member at a time could access DHIS2. - It was difficult to ensure that staff used the internet allowance only for work purposes, and misuse could result in the municipality running out of ‘data’ at critical moments. - Reliance on specific SIMS and USB dongles meant that connectivity was lost if any of these items were lost or stopped working. This session will discuss the innovative public-private partnership that has been formed between the Ministry of Health, USAID and Unitel, Angola’s largest mobile phone network operator to address these issues.
