The Health System Strengthening Accelerator (Accelerator) extends hearty congratulations to the Ministry of Health of Liberia and all its partners for hosting the hugely successful Third International Community Health Worker Symposium in Monrovia from March 20 to 24, 2023!
The symposium proved pivotal in advocating for community health workers who should be trained effectively, paid as professionals, adequately supplied, and supportively supervised to advance critical public health goals. With over 700 participants in Monrovia, the symposium included government representation from 46 countries, CHWs from around the world who participated in every session, and high-level representation from Liberia, participating countries, and development partners.
The Accelerator was honored to support the development and delivery of the 2023 CHW Symposium. We facilitated a full-day pre-symposium workshop among 39 country delegations focused on advancing community health roadmaps and improving the measurement of progress. We led the development of four out of nine of the main symposium’s themed tracks dedicated to institutionalizing financing, professionalizing the community-led workforce, improving the use of data in CHW programs, and gender dimensions in community health programming.
We thank Liberia’s Ministry of Health, USAID, Unicef, the Global Fund, Last Mile Health, the Community Health Impact Coalition, and all organizing partners for the great team effort that created such a successful global gathering.
The Accelerator strongly supports the symposium’s culminating Monrovia Call To Action, an evidence-based mutual commitment to fund, scale, and strengthen community health programs as an integral part of primary health care for realizing universal health coverage. We commit to supporting the advancement of CHWs and integration into strong primary healthcare systems as we work with governments, civil society, researchers, and other change agents to create self-sustaining systems that support healthy, educated people.
