Dear Colleagues,
I am pleased to begin this note by sharing that the Ministry of Health in each of our four countries has kindly endorsed the country baseline reports. This speaks strongly to the value of the reports and that the content is contributing to the knowledge base in each country. The reports are being reformatted to include the Ministry of Health logos along with our new Health Equity Matters logo.
I am also pleased that our first study tour in the Philippines was conducted. We are waiting for the report, and this shall be shared widely. I would like to thank ACHIEVE for successfully managing this activity for the SKPA-2 program.
We recently invited the subrecipients to complete a brief online Pulse Survey to tell us how we are going and to identify areas for improvements. We did this because we are at the end of Year 1, and we think it timely to check-in with you. We look forward to sharing the feedback with you and to discussing next steps.
We have commenced planning for our face-to-face Regional Steering Committee meeting on Tuesday 5 September and subrecipient meeting scheduled for Wednesday 6 September. A draft agenda and travel organization form will be sent to you shortly. Importantly, these meetings will give us the opportunity to update our colleagues on our progress and to focus on our Year 2 workplans.
We will also be doing our annual reporting and audit in Quarter 6 and, as you know from previous experience, we will be following-up with you for inputs. I thank you in advance for your collaboration and response.
Unfortunately, not all the activities that we planned for in Year 1 have been completed and as result, our burn rates are slow, and this is concerning. These activities will now have to slide into Year 2, and this will add to our already full program of work. This means that we will have to take stock of our collective performance and that some minor and major reprogramming will be needed to adjust and catch-up. Year 2 will be busy, and our best tool is early and careful planning. As always, we look forward to working with you.
Warm wishes,
Felicity
