iCCM policy arrives in Niger
From 2001 to 2005, health huts were built at a rapid clip; however,
the training of the community health workers to staff them lagged
behind in terms of both the number of workers trained and the quality
of training they received (NIG-2012-7-3-2, NIG-2012-6-4). At
the same time, global-level actors were beginning to coalesce around
and promote integrated community-based strategies resembling
iCCM, focusing a number of early efforts in West Africa; the West
African Health Organization (WAHO) would also identify iCCM as
a ‘best practice’ to promote in November 2005 (AWARE 2008;
Dalglish et al. 2015). In April 2005, a WAHO consultant travelled
to Niamey to perform a situation analysis for iCCM on the basis of
several criteria, and notably the existence of ‘engaged [in-country]
partners’ ready to mobilize resources and share costs (Sall 2005;
AWARE 2008). The same month, USAID’s Action for West Africa
Region—Reproductive Health (AWARE-RH) project sponsored a
large meeting in Dakar along with UNICEF, WHO and WAHO,
inviting officials from a dozen countries to discuss a common regional
approach to treating common childhood illnesses and learn
from a Senegalese project on pneumonia (AWARE 2008). At that
meeting,