10 September 2018 – The WHO country office in Libya and the WHO Regional Office for Eastern Mediterranean, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health in Libya, organized a 2-day meeting to develop a national strategy for community health workers in Libya from 7 to 8 September 2018. 

The objectives of the meeting were to:

• define the scope of community health workers;
• identify necessary competencies for community health workers to perform their duties based on the local needs and context;
• identify modalities for capacity-building of community health workers in line with scope of work and required tasks
• agree on implementation strategy and road map.

The 2-day meeting marked the beginning of a series of consultations, technical debate among the partners and Ministry of Health in order to discuss and thus develop a context-specific road map which will guide the Ministry and partners related to this pivotal component of primary health care in Libya. The alignment with the context will facilitate operationalization of the health volunteers strategy and will lead to sustainability of various health-related interventions.

Evidence suggests that community health workers who have access to households through doorstep services contribute more positively to health outcomes, especially in relation to reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health, nutrition services and control of communicable and noncommunicable diseases. Services provided by community health workers are more appropriate to the health needs of populations, are less expensive and more sustainable.

This landmark initiative is part of the planned activities of Primary Health Care Project which is funded by DFID. The newly developed strategy will be implemented initially at the level of 6 primary health care centres in Libya. The 6 selected centres will be providing primary health care services based on the newly introduced approach of family practice. Strengthening community level of health care is a core element of the family practice approach. Based on the lessons learned from implementation at the 6 centres the community health workers strategy will be progressively implemented throughout the country.