The United Nations Population Fund, UNFPA Sub-Regional Office for the Caribbean in collaboration with LACRO and its counterparts CIES and PRISMA, conducted a Regional Training of Trainer’s workshop on Costing with emphasis on Reproductive Health. The training was held in Nassau, Bahamas at the Paradise Island Harbor Resort from November 22-25, 2011. The objective of this training contributed to building the capacity and competencies of health professionals who worked in public institutions in the Caribbean region, in order to be effective in the costing of commodities and health services, with emphasis on reproductive health. A total of 25 participants were trained at this workshop and nominees were selected from 9 countries namely: Jamaica, Barbados, Suriname, Belize, Guyana, Trinidad & Tobago, St. Lucia, Grenada and St. Vincent.
The workshop was held over a 4-day period. The first day addressed Sexual and Reproductive Health in the Caribbean, components, commodities, policies, financing RH, basic concept of costing and different techniques to estimate in health as well as how to compare cost of diseases and the cost of preventive and curative activities in health. To plan production of services in health and how to cost them was also explored. On day two techniques to price the direct costs, total direct costs & indirect of health services were addressed. Day three introduced the OneHealth Tool for participants to develop familiarity with the FP and demographics component of the tool, to explore the user guide of this tool and address open questions. This was done through practical exercises and also to develop familiarity with the concept of bottlenecks and the application in the OneHealth Tool. The last day continued with more indepth practical exercises of the Onethealth Tool modeling the health systems, as well as developing familiarity with the estimation of impacts on Maternal Mortality using the OneHealth Tool.
The training included our counterparts that participated in the planning and development of national budgets, persons that negotiated the budget line for reproductive health, persons in charge of reproductive health programmes and health economists from the Ministry of Health as well as UNFPA staff. It was designed to allow the participants to get the information and then to put it in practice by using the tool.
The outcomes of the training were: To learn the basic concepts of cost analysis; to learn how to convert a strategic plan into actionable items; to learn how to cost an essential service package and a health system intervention and also to develop familiarity with the OneHealth Tool through use of practical exercises related to FP, demographics and maternal mortality components of the tool.
