- Hohn said CIFF is willing to partner on a 50/50 cost-sharing basis with the county governments in the promotion of community health.
- CIFF will also help counties to equip maternity hospitals and newborn units with an aim of reducing neonatal mortality.
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The Council of Governors chairperson Anne Waiguru on Wednesday held talks with Children's Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) Founder Christopher Hohn.
The meeting was aimed at forging a partnership to accelerate health, protection and education programmes for children.
The partnership will involve support for projects including innovative school feeding programmes, capacity building of community health workers (CHW) and implementation of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) projects.
"We have held fruitful discussions on how counties can forge strategic partnerships with CIFF in order to scale up interventions for community transformation through the initiatives," Waiguru said.
Hohn said CIFF is willing to partner on a 50/50 cost-sharing basis with the county governments in the promotion of community health.
This is through capacity-building exercises for CHWs and providing digital equipment for capturing data and measuring the progress of implementation of interventions such as newborn survival rates.
CIFF will also help counties to equip maternity hospitals and newborn units with an aim of reducing neonatal mortality.
Waiguru and Hohn further talked about a partnership in implementing WASH projects including the construction of toilets in schools and hospitals.
The CIFF founder pointed out that similar projects have been successfully implemented in other African countries including Ethiopia, Zambia and Malawi.
"We aim at eliminating all barriers to the successful realization of the child health and education goal," he said.
The Kirinyaga governor welcomed the cost-sharing approach saying it will enhance ownership of the programs by the governments and the communities.
She acknowledged that lack of proper nutrition has been a contributing factor to children dropping out of school and dismal academic performance.
Waiguru said through the strategic partnerships, counties will be able to implement school feeding programs, especially in the Early Childhood Development and Education (ECDE) centres run by the counties.
She further said there was a need to scale up models for resilient food systems including involving the communities in growing food for supply in neighbourhood schools.
To further cut the cost of running school feeding programs, Waiguru suggested that parents can be involved in labour provision by taking turns to volunteer in cooking for the children.
"There is a need to invest in preventive healthcare so as to cut the high cost of treatment which has been a burden to citizens and governments," she added.
The COG five-year plan includes strengthening the healthcare systems, the governor said.
She reiterated that services rendered by community health workers were critical in promotion of primary healthcare and public health.
There are 89,670 Community Health Volunteers in the country.