Today, the Head of the Delegation of the European Union to Eritrea, Mr Gabor Iklody accompanied by Elisabetta Pietrobon, head of political, press and information section who recently arrived in Eritrea paid an official working visit to WHO Office in Asmara. Dr Martins Ovberedjo, WHO Representative to Eritrea gave them a warm welcome and held a fruitful collaborative meeting with them that focused on strengthening health partnership between EU and WHO to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Eritrea.

During the consultative meeting, there was candid discussion on the existing political commitment for health by the State of Eritrea, high community participation and commitment to life saving interventions in the country which has been instrumental in the progress recorded by the health sector in Eritrea.

The consultative meeting identified important technical priorities for consideration that will enable WHO Eritrea and EU to strengthen support to the State of Eritrea in the near future including:

• Cross-border collaboration and support to strengthen International Health Regulation and health security
• Multi-sectoral collaboration to track Eritrea’s implementation of UHC/SDGs at national and sub national levels
• Support to strengthen health information system (targeted support to conduct population surveys, civil registration, and analysis of population based data system).
• Support to strengthen human capital development to enhance production of critically needed specialized health cadres
• Support to strengthen zoba (District) health system to deliver quality essential health services.

The WHO Representative to Eritrea, Dr Martins Ovberedjo in his comments appreciated the EU for its readiness to support Eritrea and expressed WHO readiness to work together with EU to benefit the people of Eritrea in the several identified health priority areas.

The meeting also acknowledged that the government of the State of Eritrea has made profound progress on health using domestic own resources to implement cost effective inter-sectoral interventions in health with evident improvement.

Both parties agreed on the need for the urgent support to strengthen district health systems, health security and support to strengthen health information system and national health observatory.