Comparing Primary Health Care Delivery Models in Conflict Affected Settings of Cameroon and Nigeria

In conflict settings, the need for healthcare becomes more urgent. The delivery of essential health care can indeed be a matter of life and death. As a humanitarian organization, we care not only about how primary healthcare is delivered to conflict-affected populations but also more importantly that the approaches used to deliver health care are effective, of good quality, accessible and can be sustainable. This study will contribute to unpack how models of care are chosen by humanitarian organisations and develop a framework to guide the use of different approaches in delivering health care models in conflict settings.

Among the numerous challenges faced by the over 1.7 million internally displaced persons in Northeast Nigeria are access to health care Services, Nutrition, protection and education. Of these, access to health care presents one of the most difficult challenges faced by both the humanitarians and beneficiaries. Herwa Community Development Initiative (Herwa CDI) is happy to be part of this research funded by Elrha which envisages to fill existing knowledge gap in understanding how delivery approaches are designed and selected in conflict-affected areas of Nigeria and Cameroon. Herwa CDI believes that recommendations from this research will contribute in improving service delivery and reduce human suffering in these settings.

Increasingly, there is pressure for humanitarian organisations to deliver evidence-based models of health care using limited resources. Thus creating the need to conduct studies to generate evidence needed to inform humanitarian health programming efforts. This research will explore how primary health care delivery models are selected/designed by humanitarian organizations, and design a framework to guide the selection of primary health care delivery models in conflict settings.