Introduction: Context, Policies and Strategies

The United Nations (UN) Millennium Declaration was signed by 189 countries in 2000, and translated into eight Millennium Development Goals (MDG) for development and poverty eradication. Three of the eight MDGs are directly related to health, concerning child health (MDG 4), maternal health (MDG 5) and disease control (MDG 6), respectively. Although 2011 UN MDG Report indicates that most countries have made gradual progress since 1990, many low-income countries, at current rates of progress, are unlikely to reach their goals by 2015. Countries that are on track in achieving MDGs share several factors in common: implementation of an integrated package of community and primary curative and preventive care, development of district management systems, strong political leadership, coordination and harmonization across partners and government agencies, effective use of information and financial resources, participation of beneficiary communities and intersectoral collaboration. It is for this reason that the Health Sector Development Program (HSDP) in Ethiopia is focusing on high-impact and cost-effective health interventions as well as on health systems strengthening and intersectoral collaboration in order to achieve the dual goals of improving the health status of the population and reducing health inequalities. Ethiopia is making substantial progress towards the achievement of the health MDGs, which is a challenging task in the context of heavy disease burden and high poverty level prevalent in the country. This session aims at describing progress and challenges towards the achievement of MDGs in Ethiopia, in the context of the implementation of the fourth phase (2010/11-2014/15) of HSDP. It has a special focus on the implementation of primary health care programs, health systems strengthening and harmonization and alignment processes, therefore providing hints to guide policies, strategies and programmes to be implemented in the next years to achieve MDGs by 2015.