Lesotho conducted a training on the OneHealth Tool from 1st-5th July. This invaluable tool will be used for the costing of strategic plans, beginning with the Health Sector Strategy 2012-2017 and the Health Research Strategy 2012-2017.

The training took place over five days at Ka Pitseng Lodge, Berea. A total of 28 participants were trained, including 23 Ministry of Health staff, 3 from the WHO, 1 from UNICEF and 1 from the National University of Lesotho. The facilitators were Mr. Emeka Nsofor, a WHO consultant, and Dr. Benjamin Nganda, from the WHO Intercountry Support Team.

The training was officially opened by the WHO Country Representative, Dr. Jacob Mufunda and offered words of encouragement ‘I am here as a participant, to learn as we are all learning together. Lets all be committed to favorable outcome to this workshop’.

The training covered an introduction to the tool, the role of the tool, the background and epidemiological data that is needed by the OneHealth, an overview of basic cost con-cepts, an overview on financial sustainability assessment, budget mapping and finally generating scenarios in the OneHealth Tool.

The workshops objectives were to familiarize country officers on the OneHealth Tool as a tool for medium term strategic health planning and to have a pool of country officials that will cost the NHSP 2012-2017.

Each day the facilitators made presenta-tions on the different elements of the OneHealth Tool. These were followed by individual exercises for the participants.

On the 4th day, the participants reviewed the contents of the draft National Health Strategic Plan (NHSP) for Lesotho, linked them to the OneHealth Tool modules, brainstormed and came up with a way forward for costing the Lesotho NHSP.

The official closing was conducted by Mr. Molaoa Maqhama on behalf of the Princi-pal Secretary of the Ministry of Health.

The costing of the Lesotho NHSP is expected to be completed by the first week of August 2013.

Lesotho completes training on OneHealth Tool for costing of the Health Sector Strategic Plan