Svensk partner: Region Västerbotten

Region Västerbotten, Umeå Municipality and Kisumu County, Kenya

Project: Partnership and Governance for Health and Resilience in relation to Climate Change and Environment in Kenyan Counties alongside Lake Victoria

The project will establish a partnership between The County of Västerbotten and Kenyan counties in the Lake Victoria Basin area. The partnership will be governed by Center for Rural Medicine/Region Västerbotten, Umeå Municipality and Kisumu County.
The main goal of the project is to produce an agreement between Kisumu County and other Kenyan counties in the Lake Victoria Basin area that include a framework on, and priorities for, what the counties need to and can do, to jointly, effectively and democratically promote health and resilience, taking the climate crisis and man-made environmental degradation into account.

Region Västerbotten and Homa Bay, Kenya

Project: Governance for youth health in Homa Bay County

Homa Bay County and Region Västerbotten via Centre for rural medicine are finalizing their project on leadership and governance for the provision of equitable health care. The main objective of this project was to strengthen the structures and processes for a high-quality functional management, collaboration, and coordination function for equitable health care in Homa Bay County. In this project, the partners aim to increase the capacity of healthcare providers in the provision of sexual, reproductive, and mental health services amongst the youths in Homa Bay County. The Centre for Rural Medicine will expand its own understanding on the health of the youth in the County of Västerbotten, and in the County of Homa Bay, for this analysis to be communicated in a broad variety of fora where the Center for Rural Medicine is active.

Region Västerbotten and Homa Bay, Kenya

Governance in providing accessible, affordable, equitable and quality health care service to the citizens

The main objective is to establish structures and processes for a high-quality functional management, collaboration and coordination function/unit for equitable health care in Homa Bay County.

Regarding the Centre for Rural Medicine (CRM) which is a department within The County Council of Västerbotten (soon named Region Västerbotten) the organization is established as well functional research and development unit, however with room for improvements. In this project CRM will take the opportunity to assess its own organization in dialogue with Homa Bay County Government.

Intermediate objectives in this project are:

To establish an agreement for improvements of the ministry responsible for health services in Homa Bay County which are detailed in terms of organizational assessment, decisions on what to do for organisational development.
To establish a tailor-made training program for health care providers and managers responsible for health services.
To establish a communication strategy for the communication with citizens in Homa Bay County on available health care services.

Towards a democratic and equitable health system. Project 2: Building citizens health-literacy and intrinsic motivation to becoming co-creators in health promotion

In many parts of the world infectious diseases are severely under-reported, sometimes because of lack of diagnostic capacity and statistics, but sometimes as a conscious decision to protect economic and political interests. This approach is not consistent with good democracy and threaten especially those people already struggling to defend themselves because of poverty or lack of education. Lack of understanding of when, where, how and who suffer from these conditions affect the individual and the society’s ability to prevent spread of infections. Mosquito-borne diseases like dengue fever is no exception.

This is one of three sub-projects within the framework of a well-established collaboration between Västerbotten County Council and Yogyakarta City Government addressing the development of a more sustainable, transparent and democratic health system, using dengue fever as a model.

This project (2) aims to improve the citizens’ health literacy; the motivation and ability of individuals to gain access to, understand and use information in ways which promote and maintain good health, and a community-based structure that empower the people to become co-creator of their own health. This work includes establishing clear roles and mandates in the community and to create trust in structures on community as well as governmental level.

Towards a democratic and equitable health system – Project 1: Information systems for transparency and inclusion

Infectious diseases are severely under-reported global, sometimes because of lack of capacity to diagnose and report disease cases, but also as a conscious decision to protect economic and political interests. This approach is not consistent with a good democracy and threatens especially those who are already vulnerable, poor or uneducated. Lack of understanding of when, where, how and who suffer from these conditions affect the individual as well as society’s ability to prevent the spread of infection. Mosquito-borne diseases, such as dengue fever are no exception.

This is one of three projects within the framework of a well-established collaboration between Västerbotten County Council and the Yogyakarta City Government, who has jointly addressed the development of a more sustainable, transparent and democratic health system with dengue fever as a model.

This project (Project 1) aims to create a more transparent health authority equipped with political will as well as tools that enables sharing of disease-related information, such as disease statistics, forecasts and decisions about preventive activities, with the citizen, but also two-way communication channels that enables the individual citizen to influence these decisions.

Dengue early warning in a local community

To manage the growing burden of dengue, many actors have to interact and the awareness among citizens has to increase. The purpose of this project is to strengthen the organizational infrastructure of Yogyakarta city to address this issue.

The goal is to introduce a new decision support system that makes it possible to deliver dengue forecasts, a system that requires collaboration between health care, meteorological offices, health offices, schools and civic programs.

The project will support the establishment of clear roles, responsibilities, coordination of actions and communication channels based on existing efforts, to create a sustainable collaboration around these issues.

Dengue risk communication in a local community

To reduce the growing burden of dengue in Yogyakarta, many societal actors need to interact creating increased awareness among citizens.

The project objective is to design a concept for risk communication about dengue, based on the local citizens’ knowledge, attitudes, behaviors, needs and circumstances and integrate it as part of the local authorities’ regular work with dengue control, with clear responsibilities and mandates, in collaboration with the local community. A sustainable way of working is desired where the local community is involved, based on the knowledge that citizens’ participation and engagement is central for the success of community interventions.

Equitable Health – Building capacity to address healthcare challenges in rural areas

Health inequity is a serious global problem and social determinants are strong predictors for health status. So is the place where you live; people in urban areas typically have better health than people in rural communities, where healthcare resources additionally are scarce.

This project builds on the joint challenge of the two partners to provide high-quality healthcare to rural communities.

In the light of the rapid urbanization, rural medicine has social as well as political and economical dimensions that have to be tackled. The project will therefore create opportunities for sharing experiences on various levels of society by involving politicians, healthcare officials, medical practitioners, educational policy makers and community members in the joint activities. The project will arrange workshops, perform surveys in schools and create a mentor program for medical students and staff practicing in rural areas.

The project also aims at setting up a telemedicine test-bed in a village in Gunungkidul. This test-bed will be placed in a public facility, inspired by the “virtual health room” located in a school in rural Västerbotten. The project is expected to improve the capacity of the local governments to improve the health and wellbeing of the population, with focus on rural communities.

Capacity building for Sustainable Ecotourism

Region Västerbotten and Elgeyo Marakwet and The county of Elgeyo Marakwet in Kenya have worked together in an inceeptionphase and identified a joint area of cooperation relevant for both parties; capacity building for sustainable ecotourism.

The main goal of the project is to establish capacity in the County Government of Elgeyo Marakwet to harness tourism potential in the county based on understanding and strategies for sustainable ecotourism.

The main goal is also relevant for Region Västerbotten who has started to develop sustainable ecotourism. An integrated quality secured ecotourism and sustainable development is seen as a viable option to harness the huge tourism potential to help improve the quality of life of the local communities through economic empowerment.

We plan to quality secure this development implementing globally accepted criteria for ecotourism and sustainable tourism both on a corporate and on a destination level.