DAKAR, SENEGAL — Integrate Health is excited to announce it is expanding to Senegal! Members of our executive team have spent the past week in workshops and listening sessions with officials from the Senegal Ministry of Health and Public Hygiene to ensure close alignment on local, national, and regional priorities for Integrate Health’s new presence in the country.
“This workshop…provides an opportunity to ensure that the proposed directions align with national priorities, identify any necessary adjustments, and foster institutional ownership of the approach from the start,” shared Tidiane Gueye, Technical Advisor for Partnerships to the Minister of Health and Public Hygiene. “The Ministry of Health and Public Hygiene remains open to initiatives that can help improve the provision of quality services and strengthen community health.”
A new regional hub
The expansion into Senegal is a key milestone in Integrate Health’s 2023–2028 Strategic Plan and reflects the organization’s long-term commitment to strengthening primary healthcare systems across the region. For now, we are establishing a regional hub designed to strengthen Integrate Health’s capacity to operate sustainably in Francophone West Africa. The regional hub will serve as the spark for developing strategic partnerships, strengthening our presence within the regional health ecosystem, and mobilizing additional resources for high-quality primary care.
Integrate Health’s approach puts local governments and communities at the forefront, accompanying, not directing, national governments in accomplishing their goals. “The responsibility for setting priorities, weighing trade-offs, and steering a health system belongs to the government,” Emily Bensen, Integrate Health CEO said to Ministry officials. “Our role as a partner is to test approaches, measure their impact and their cost, and document what works and what does not. We then put those lessons in the hands of decisionmakers.”
Our more than two decades of experience in Togo and Guinea has defined and refined this approach. We adapted our approach alongside our government partners in both countries, based on their specific objectives. For example, after receiving a request for support by the government of Togo, Integrate Health supported the Ministry of Health in developing Wezou, a program that covers essential maternal health services at no cost to patients. In Guinea, we were invited by the government to implement the Integrated Primary Care Program to reach more zero-dose children in an underserved rural district. These examples are what our approach looks like in action: Integrate Health serves as a learning laboratory which de-risks evidence-based interventions for government-led scale and bring them one step closer to achieving their Universal Health Coverage goals. We look forward to bringing these lessons and many more to the regional hub and sharing them with partners across Francophone West Africa.
Why Senegal
Senegal has made several health gains over the past two decades. Under-five mortality fell from 121 per 1,000 live births in 2005 to 40 per 1,000 in 2023. However, national averages obscure a persistent rural-urban gap: under-five mortality remains at 45 per 1,000 in rural areas, compared with 34 per 1,000 in urban areas according to Senegal’s 2023 continuous demographic and health survey, with health workers and services still concentrated in and around Dakar.
The government of Senegal has made closing that gap a national priority, setting a goal under its “Senegal 2050” transformation agenda of universal access to quality healthcare by 2035, including free care for children under five and the elimination of preventable maternal, newborn, and child deaths. Those priorities align closely with the areas where Integrate Health thrives, making Senegal’s own agenda a natural starting point for the next phase of our expansion in Francophone West Africa.
Senegal is also home to regional UN and NGO offices, with a vibrant and collaborative ecosystem already in place. Entering that ecosystem creates more opportunities for Integrate Health to work more closely with peer organizations already in the region, learn from their experience, and contribute our own expertise in return, while mobilizing additional resources for high-quality primary care in underserved communities.
Building for long-term impact
A further expansion of programming into Senegal remains in line with our values of prioritizing government needs and request. Any implementation activities would be designed and delivered with the Ministry of Health and Public Hygiene in the lead role in alignment with Senegal’s existing health system and policies.
“No single actor transforms a health system alone,” said Bensen. “Lasting results require a government that sets the course and coordinates the work, local and territorial authorities that carry priorities to communities, technical and financial partners who support national ambitions, and organizations able to test, learn, and implement.”
Establishing the regional hub is the first step in what Integrate Health hopes will become a long-term partnership as we accompany Senegal’s own progress toward Universal Health Coverage, particularly for women and children in rural and underserved communities. Our commitment to a healthier future across Francophone West Africa has never been stronger, and we cannot wait to share updates on what is next!