Evaluation took place on the Institute’s mid-term performance

Members of the Management committee of the Ethiopian Public Health Institute, Team coordinators, Principal Investigators, and concerned professionals of the Institute have made a meeting on the Midterm Evaluation Report of the Five year strategic plan of the Institute, from March 13 to16, 2014, in Adama.

Dr. Amha Kebede Director General of the Ethiopian Public Health Institute, EPHI, in his opening remarks said that, our gathering today is to evaluate our mid-term performance of the Five year strategic plan. As you all know, in the history of the Institute it was for the first time we have developed and launched the current Institute’s Five year strategic plan in mid 2010, which have four major strategic themes and seventeen strategic objectives under them.

The mid-term evaluation was undertaken internally by a cross-functional and multi-disciplinary technical working group established for this particular task and were assisted by an independent consulting firm ICOS consulting, contracted by UNICEF, to provide technical support and facilitate the evaluation process. This final draft report is believed to give a brief summary of the past three Years performance and achievements and limitations of the Institute at a glance.

Ato Hussein Faris Head of the Plan, Finance, Monitoring and Evaluation Directorate, in his introduction about the evaluation meeting said that, the three days meeting is conducted to discuss in depth on the Institute’s achievements and limitations based on the consultative findings. Depending on the findings we will forward points that would be accelerated plan for the remaining strategic planning years.

Ato Arega Zeru, Head of Plan, Monitoring and Evaluation Case Team, has also explained the main objectives of the Mid-term evaluation that was to assess the progress in Implementing the strategic plan and expected outputs and outcomes of the three years, to access factors contributing for achievements or failures, to take corrective measures and draw lessons and indicate directions, to identify strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities, and to be ready for the next strategic plan preparations.

In the three days meeting, participants were grouped into five groups based on the thematic areas of the strategic plan and discussed on the findings of the evaluators. Many issues were raised during the discussion and consensus was reached on most of the points. Some participants of the meeting said that the meeting was very participatory and successful. The meeting has also identified activities which would be and wouldn’t be implemented in the remaining plan year and set the implementation.