Kenyan Community Health Volunteers have received international recognition for their role in improving health outcomes in their communities.
The recognition which was awarded during the third International CHW Symposium held in Liberia acknowledged the remarkable progress Kenya has made in implementing community health services.
Kenya has more than 9,000 CHVs who play an integral part in promoting uptake of healthcare services at community levels.
This includes maternal and child health, nutrition, family planning, and disease prevention and management.
They have also been instrumental in increasing health literacy and promoting healthy behaviors in their communities.
The symposium also produced the Monrovia Declaration, a document that calls on countries to invest in country-led strategies, normalize professional CHWs, integrate CHWs into health plans, gain political support and track CHW program progress.
The declaration recognises the critical role that CHWs play in delivering primary health care and achieving universal health coverage.
It underscores the need for a just transition, undertaken with a gender equity and social inclusion lens, to protect quality jobs for women and other marginalized groups.
The Kenyan delegation, led by the Ministry of Health shared their roadmap and progress in community health service delivery and demonstrated the remarkable impact that CHWs have had in improving health outcomes in their communities.
The delegation's presentations earned them a standing ovation from the symposium attendees, who recognized Kenya's success in deploying CHWs to deliver preventive, promotive and basic curative health services.
