Big Win supports Ethiopian Ministry of Health to provide life-saving health services for IDPs

Big Win Team 11 January 2023

Under the leadership of the Minister of Health, Dr. Lia Tadesse, the Government of Ethiopia is mobilizing an unprecedented effort to strengthen essential health services for approximately three million internally displaced people (IDPs) across the country. 

IDPs are at increased risk for acute malnutrition and potentially deadly disease outbreaks—and the towns and cities that host them face overstretched health services and disruptions to care. 

To address these challenges and save lives, the Ministry of Health is taking urgent steps to strengthen humanitarian health interventions at IDP sites across the country. Big Win Philanthropy is pleased to support these efforts through a new grant to the ministry. 

The grant will focus on four key interventions: 

  1. Deploying a surge team to heavily affected regions—Tigray, Amhara, Afar, Oromia and Benishangul—to strengthen healthcare services in these areas. 
  2. Establishing temporary clinics in some of the most heavily populated IDP sites to help meet the demand for essential health services. 
  3. Strengthening a referral system with health facilities near IDP sites to ensure that people with more complex health issues can get the care they need. 
  4. Establishing a mobile health and nutrition team, which will conduct nutrition screening, provide essential maternal and child health services, and provide basic curative care. 

Together, these measures will help ensure that essential health services are available to IDPs, strengthen nutritional screening and treatment for malnutrition, and boost the ministry’s ability to prepare for, detect, and respond to health emergencies. 

Announcing the grant, Big Win CEO Dr. Kesete Admasu, said: “Dr. Lia and her team at the Ministry of Health have mobilized an impressive, coordinated effort to provide life-saving care to internally displaced people. Having partnered with the Ethiopian government on several game-changing health and nutrition programs since our founding, we are proud to support them as they take on this critical challenge.”  

Photo: Minister of Health, Dr. Lia Tadesse.