Expanding Access to Responsive Healthcare in Guinea 

The USAID Guinea Notre Santé (Our Health) Activity is helping expand access to affordable, quality health services for vulnerable Guineans

Guinea’s health system is still recovering from the impact of ​Ebola​, the COVID-19 pandemic, and political instability. Given high rates of poverty in Guinea, many Guineans struggle to afford healthcare, with only half of the population able to access high quality health services. Its dedicated health workforce needs training and tools to extend affordable and equitable healthcare to all citizens, especially the most vulnerable.  

Opportunities abound to strengthen local capacity and citizen oversight of health service delivery as Guinea decentralizes its health system and moves decision making to local levels. By bolstering engagement between community groups, health providers, and local governments, Guinea can improve stewardship and delivery of high-quality maternal, newborn, and child health; family planning and reproductive health; and infectious diseases, including malaria and COVID-19 services, resulting in lives saved.   

Strengthening Guinea's health sector 

USAID Guinea Notre Santé builds on RTI’s ​deep experience​ in strengthening Guinea’s health system since 2007 to help the country further improve health outcomes, especially among women and children. ​This five-year activity (2023–2028) targets support in Boké, Kindia, Labé, and Conakry.  

The project’s approach to improving health services, and thus health outcomes, includes: 

• Empowering local leadership to engage citizens, expand access to responsive care, and lead and fund health system improvements. Interventions include strengthening national and prefecture health management structures, supporting facility-level health and hygiene committees to develop facility service improvement plans, and surfacing local solutions and opportunities to replicate proven approaches in new contexts. 
• Integrating health services for malaria, maternal and child health, and family planning across the continuum of care while mobilizing communities to adopt healthy behaviors and seek care. Interventions include supporting community health workers with training and supplies to deliver the integrated community health package of services, training health professionals, and conducting and applying social norms research to promote behavior change. 
• Working across sectors to address governance issues that perpetuate poor health outcomes and discourage citizen confidence in local leaders and institutions. Interventions include strengthening civil society and independent media to hold government and health sector leaders accountable for integrated and responsive healthcare. 
• Increasing the use of strategic information, such as quality data, for decision-making. Interventions include improving the interoperability of health information systems and expanding the use and quality of existing data systems for disease surveillance. 

Strengthening health system resilience 

Enhancing local leadership of health service delivery and strengthening the continuum of care are essential for improving resilience. Our approach to strengthening resilience focuses on three key domains: cross-sectoral governance strengthening, capacity strengthening at national and sub-national levels, and integrated grants to local and community-based organizations. 

 

Learn more about our work in Global Health and in Guinea.