National Health Promotion Strategy of Sierra Leone (2017–2021).

The overall objectives of the National Health Promotion Strategy of Sierra Leone (2017–2021) are: 1. Strengthen Health Promotion Structures; 2.Strengthen National Health Promotion Interventions; 3. Improve Human Resources and Capacity Strengthening for Health Promotion; 4. Raise Awareness and Mobilise Resources for Strengthened Health Promotion; 5. Improve Monitoring and Evaluation Systems for Health Promotion; 6. Strengthen Knowledge Sharing and Management. The heart of the Strategy is to build a high-quality health promotion division within the MOHS, which can then more effectively provide guidance to district-level implementers and partners.
Under Objective 2.Strengthen National Health Promotion Interventions, one of the Strategy Directions is: Strengthen Integration of Health Promotion Activities with Activities in Other Sectors – e.g., Education, Agriculture, Youth – to Achieve Health and Development Gains. Potential activities include: • Exploring or strengthening integrated nutrition programming with the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Forestry; • Reaching women and children with health promotion activities through the Ministry of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs; • Strengthening partnerships with the Ministry of Local Governments and Rural Development and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Local Government and Rural Affairs to gain access to and influence regional- and local-level leaders.
In order to increase the resilience of livelihoods to disasters, one of the the Strategy Directions is set up to facilitate development of an emergency communication plan. Some features of the public health emergency response system will include: • a continued emphasis on coordinating committees and task forces at all levels; • capacity building in emergency and risk communication; • a use of media that has already proven effective, such as a toll free hotline, use of SMS messages, radio programming in local dialects and mobile PA systems; • an expansion of community surveillance efforts; • community engagement, group discussions, drama groups and local celebrities; and • continued use of community bye-laws to create the enabling environment for action. Major activities include: 1) contribute to emergency communication plan and training curriculum 2) support emergency communication training at district-level.
This National Health Promotion Strategy provides a framework for both community engagement and the work of the Community Health Workers at the community level. This Strategy consists of national health priorities that all partners must rally around, including a work plan for improved human resources for health promotion, capacity strengthening, advocacy and strengthened monitoring and evaluation systems.