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In 2007, WHO published a framework, commonly known as the “WHO building blocks”, to focus attention on the need to strengthen health systems, and to guide a common conceptual understanding of what constitutes a health system, in order to go about strengthening it.

My job has basically focus on health system strengthening in the last 6 years, I remembered as a volunteer, helping one of the primary health care centre in Lagos became a comprehensive centre through the FHI 360 Strengthening Integrated Delivery of HIV/AIDS Services (SIDHAS) project as counselor tester, monitoring and evaluation officer. I was in this role not just as a volunteer but I saw it as a learning opportunity. It paid off with a bigger responsibility.

The Strengthening Pro poor Community Health in Lagos State, as an operation manager of one of the intervention, a mobile technology solution to reduce maternal mortality in the State, yet another learning experience learning from experts from Japan. I began to think about health care solutions in terms of the global goals, SDGs 3 and how the UHC coverage can be achieved.

Like the saying, you become what you think about, while I was building mu skills to become a data analyst, yet another project came knocking, Project for Strengthening Detection of and Response to Public Health Threats in Nigeria.

I had to rework myself again by learning some basics in epidemiology, the job is not yet done and learning to be a systems thinker and be more valuable to problem solving in hard work, especially in health system.

The key to note for me always is that, whatever the mind of a man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.

Image source 1: The WHO’s Health System Building Blocks Framework. World Health Organization. Everybody’s Business: Strengthening health systems to improve health outcomes — WHO’s Framework for Action. Geneva: WHO, 2007, page 3.)

Image source 2: Interconnection between building blocks. World Health Organization. Systems thinking for health systems strengthening. Edited by Don de Savigny and Taghreed Adam. WHO, 2009, page 32).