IN ZAMBIA, LIVES SAVED BY NATION’S BOLD APPROACH TO HEALTH CARE
2013 Resolve Award Recognizes Zambia for Advances in Reproductive Health Care
Geneva, May 22, 2013 — Today, Zambia will receive the prestigious Resolve Award, which honors nations for expanding access to essential reproductive health services. The Honorable Dr. Joseph Kasonde, Minister of Health, will accept the Award on behalf of the Government of Zambia at a ceremony celebrating the Resolve Awardees during the 66th World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland.
The Award honors Zambia's efforts to ensure that all people have access to primary and reproductive health services, and to provide those services in a convenient, integrated way. "People do not want to go to separate facilities for family planning and for child health," says Dr. Kasonde. "We are working to meet all of their health needs in one place."
Integrated service delivery is part of a larger restructuring and strengthening of health services in Zambia. A decade ago, Zambia's rates of HIV/AIDS and maternal and child mortality were among the world's highest, and access to family planning and reproductive health care was limited. Years of "structural adjustment" had decimated the country's health and social service sectors.
