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USAID Expands Efforts to Increase Basic Health Care to Afghans
WASHINGTON, DC 20523
PRESS OFFICE
http://www.usaid.gov/
Press: (202) 712-4320
Public Information: (202) 712-4810
2003-084
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 26, 2003
Contact: USAID Press Office
WASHINGTON, DC -- The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has announced that construction has begun on the first health clinic of a $32 million project to build or rehabilitate 400 Afghan clinics over the next three years. A ceremony took place earlier this month in Qala-e-Qazi, a village in Qarabagh District of Kabul Province. This initiative is being sponsored by the Ministry of Health of the Islamic Transitional Government of Afghanistan, with support from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
This construction project is part of a country-wide health care improvement effort in which the U.S. Government working with the Afghanistan Ministry of Health and a number of international organizations to improve the health of women and children and raise the level of health care across the country. USAID's Rural Expansion of Afghanistan's Community-based Healthcare (REACH) program is investing an overall $133 million over three years to make health services accessible to every woman and child.
Completion of seventy-eight of the 400 clinics is expected by the end of the year. An additional 75 existing clinics need rehabilitation to meet modern standards for health care clinics. Fifty-one of the clinics will be basic health centers designed to provide services to a population of 30,000; the others are 11-room comprehensive health centers to provide a higher level of health care for a population of 30,000 to 60,000.
USAID is working with other donors to ensure delivery of health services in the new and rehabilitated clinics. UNICEF and the World Bank are supplying the equipment. European Commission will help manage and supply those centers located in their target areas. The MoH has agreed through a memorandum of understanding to provide the staffing for the health centers.
USAID and the Ministry of Health work through non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to involve the local communities in the construction of the clinics, based on the community's ability and resources. Contracts for the construction have been awarded to seven local Afghan construction firms for clinics in Badakshan, Ghazni, Helmand, Kandahar, Paktiya, and Zabul. The clinic in Qala-e-Qazi will be built by a local Afghan firm, RFCC.
To date, the U.S. government has obligated more than $1.7 billion since September, 2001 to programs and activities throughout Afghanistan. USAID works primarily in the area of agriculture revitalization, expansion of educational opportunities, increasing access to basic health care and expansion of citizen participation in the democratic process.
The U.S. Agency for International Development has provided economic and humanitarian assistance worldwide for more than 40 years.
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