IntraHealth International And Partners Awarded $250 Million USAID Health Project

4 November, 2004

CHAPEL HILL, NC - The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Global Bureau for Health has awarded IntraHealth International and partners a major project aimed at improving health care in developing countries. Currently called the Human Capacity Development (HCD) Project, it is the Agency's flagship initiative aimed at strengthening human resources and health systems. The five-year project has a funding ceiling of $250 million.

The project's overall goal is to save lives by building human capacity in low-resource countries to provide quality maternal and child health, reproductive health, nutrition and other health care services. It is designed in part to alleviate the additional burden placed on health systems by the rise in HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases. While the project is global in scope, it is expected to have a focus in sub-Saharan Africa where health systems are especially burdened.

"The new HCD Project provides IntraHealth with an opportunity to continue its very important work of supporting health workers in the developing world and to offer global leadership in an area critical to international development," said IntraHealth President Pape Gaye [pronounced Pop Guy]. "We look forward to making significant contributions to the international health community's effort to address workforce issues in more systemic ways."

Leading international nonprofit and private-sector organizations will work with IntraHealth to implement the HCD Project. These include Management Sciences for Health (Boston), JHPIEGO (an affiliate of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore), PATH (Seattle), Emerging Markets Group (Washington, DC), the SAS Institute (Cary, NC), Training Resources Group, Inc. (Alexandria, VA), Interchurch Medical Assistance (New Windsor, MD) and the Liverpool Associates in Tropical Health (England). The Center for Infectious Diseases at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will also contribute technical assistance.

The Project Director, Laurie Noto Parker, notes that "an important part of saving lives in developing countries is getting the right provider with the right skills into the right place. Our partnership looks forward to applying our experience and expertise to these challenges."

For 25 years, USAID has funded IntraHealth in a series of large global training and performance improvement projects focused on family planning and reproductive health. The HCD Project is to date the largest and broadest in scope for the organization, which was founded in 1979 as Intrah, a program of the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Medicine. In July 2003, IntraHealth International incorporated as an independent non-profit organization. IntraHealth implements a number of international health projects, and has regional and project offices in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America.

USAID's Global Bureau for Health funds many U.S.-based international organizations to implement health programs in developing countries. IntraHealth receives both central funding for global efforts from USAID's Washington office and country-specific project support from USAID missions in many countries.