Afghanistan

JSI has contributed to strengthening Afghanistan’s health programs, particularly in the areas of immunization, maternal and child health, and tuberculosis (TB).

The TB DIAH project began implementing a Quality of Tuberculosis Services Assessment (QTSA) in Afghanistan in 2019. The nationwide QTSA was conducted in 242 facilities providing TB services as well as 24 diabetes centres across Afghanistan to identify where services were of high quality and where there were gaps and to ensure that TB patients were receiving the care that they deserve. The QTSA assessed three domains of quality of care: the structure of the health facility, the service delivery process, and the outcomes of service delivery. The results will be used to develop programs or interventions to improve TB service delivery.

From 2016-2020, the Rotavirus Accelerated Vaccine Introduction Network (RAVIN) project provided rotavirus vaccine support to Afghanistan. RAVIN complemented existing efforts of the Ministry of Health and key partners to facilitate the decision, planning, and introduction processes for the rotavirus vaccine. JSI’s technical assistance included supporting the development of quality introduction grant applications to GAVI, contributing to comprehensive introduction planning and roll-out of the vaccine in-country, and providing post-launch supportive supervision and monitoring. 

In 2016, Advancing Partners and Communities (APC), with input from Strengthening Partnerships, Results and Innovations in Nutrition Globally (SPRING), conducted a desk review of existing policies and documents related to community health systems in Afghanistan, including an examination of nutrition-related health issues and policies and community health workers (CHWs) service delivery areas, with particular attention paid to CHW service provision to adolescents, pregnant women, breastfeeding women, newborns, and children. This effort was undertaken as part of the wider Community Health Systems Catalog data collection.

In the 2000s, JSI supported Gavi’s work, conducting pre-assessments of new vaccine introduction proposals, and also developing the GAVI CSO Study to construct a monitoring and evaluability study to guide the development of a sound and practical system for measuring the progress and effectiveness of the GAVI Alliance support for civil society organizations (CSOs) in Afghanistan. This M&E system was the first attempt to track the performance and effectiveness of the new and innovative CSO support mechanism.

JSI began working in Afghanistan in the early 1990s, evaluating maternal and child health and immunization programs including the Health Sector Support Project (HSSP) launched in 1986.