NPHI Stories: Action Planning in Rwanda

To protect people from disease, public health systems need know where a gap exists to fill it. This requires tools to create an action plan—and that’s what Staged Development Tool (SDT), a process and a toolkit, is providing Rwanda’s Institute of HIV/AIDS Disease Prevention and Control (IHDPC) in its Biomedical Center (RBC). The SDT, which creates a roadmap to help NPHIs function better and have more impact, is now being used in Rwanda with support from partners.

In March 2016, CDC and the International Association of Public Health Institutes (IANPHI) teams went to Rwanda to work with IHDPC. When discussing non-communicable diseases, the teams used the SDT and identified gaps and determined priorities to support capacity building.

“[The SDT is] very useful. It shows gaps and what you should be doing and the different steps to take to help [an NPHI] define itself,” says Simon Pierre Niyonsenga, Director of Renal, Pulmonary, Diabetes & Other Metabolic Diseases Unit at IHDPC’s NCD Division.

Moving forward, CDC’s NPHI program plans to continue its support of putting IHDPC’s work plan into action, which will include holding an IHDPC strategic planning workshop.