Newcastle University

Amman, Jordan - 3-6 June 2013

Organisation

The workshop was designed and co-ordinated by Dr Shahaduz Zaman, Newcastle University in consultation with Prof. Peter Phillimore, Newcastle University, PI of RESCAP-MED project, and organised by Dr Yusuf Khader of Jordan University of Science and Technology.   

Participants

Country	Number of Participants	Male	Female
Jordan	7	4	3
Turkey	5	1	4
Palestine	3	2	1
Tunisia	2	1	1
Lebanon	2	1	1
Syria	2	0	2
Total	21	9	12

Participants included senior level officials from ministry of health, senior academicians as well as mid-level researchers and academics.  Among the participants there were no early career researchers or officials.

Facilitators:

Dr Motasem Hamdan (Al-Quds University, Jerusalem), Dr Shahaduz Zaman (Newcastle University, UK), Dr Abdullatif Husseini (Birzeit University, Palestine), Dr Fouad Fouad (American University of Beirut, Lebanon), Dr Yousef Khader (Jordan University of Science and Technology), Dr Riyad Amin Okour (Ministry of Health, Jordan), Dr Jamal Abu Saif (Ministry of health, Jordan), Dr Musa Ajlouni (Philadelphia University, Jordan).

Aims

It was expected that by the end of the module the participants should be able to:

• Understand the basic concepts of health policy making and implementation process
• Identify and analyse different stakeholders in policy making
• Understand health policy making in the globalising world and the role of national and international players in the process.
• Understand the cultural aspects of health and health policy
• Describe the health policy analysis framework.
• Understand the challenges of health policy implementation
• Compare health policy situations between different developing countries

Content

The workshop covered both theoretical and applied aspects of health policy evaluation.  Case studies of health policy situations in different countries were presented.  Local policy implementers shared their practical experiences of policy implementation. There was also a reading exercise on health policy research papers.

Workshop sessions covered the following topics:

Health Policy: Basic concepts, health policy making, agenda-setting process, stakeholder analysis, health policy in the globalising world, culturally competent health policy, health policy in the context of political crisis, role of research in health policy making, health policy analysis framework, health policy situation: Palestine, Jordan, Syria, policy implementation experience, policy brief, presentation of reading exercise on policy research papers.

Feedback

Written feedback on the workshop was taken from participants at the end of the training workshop. Feedback was very positive, both about the content of the training and the atmosphere in which it was conducted.  A few participants felt that it would have been good to have more group exercises during workshop.

Some Observations:

Among the participants there was a good mix in terms of gender, as well as researchers and public health managers. Despite the severe political crisis currently occurring in Syria, we were lucky to have two Syrian participants. This is in contrast to our first RESCAP-MED workshop on health economics held in Cairo, where we did not have any participants from Syria due to the internal situation in the country.  In this context a decision was made at the 2^nd PMC meeting in Izmir that we would try to find Syrian participants from the diaspora community.  Accordingly, two participants were selected for the health policy workshop who are part of the Syrian diaspora community living in Lebanon.  

It should be noted that, although all the participants were mid or senior-level researchers or government officials, none of them had ever undergone formal training on health policy.  As a result, they all expressed their utmost interest in the topic throughout the workshop.  The first day of the workshop was devoted to the conceptual aspects of health policy-making and was facilitated by Dr. Motasem Hamdan.  This set the ground for the following workshop sessions. On the second day we focused more on real-life situations.  Dr. Shahaduz Zaman conducted two sessions on health policies in the globalising world and culturally competent health policy.  The session by Dr. Fouad Fouad, on health policy during a crisis, generated a lot of interest and discussion.  The whole region is currently going through a huge political transitional phase, and as a result this topic was found to be very relevant to everyone.  The anecdotes about Syria from Dr. Fouad Foud also made the presentation emotionally engaging.

On the third day, case studies on the health policy situation were presented from Jordan, Palestine and Syria by Dr. Musa Ajlouni, Dr. Abdullatif Husseini and Dr. Fouad Fouad respectively.  Although some differences were present in each situation, some common trends were also observed between these countries.  In all three cases there was a wide gap between policy-making and implementation, lack of co-ordination between various departments was prominent, and it was also apparent that the health sector of these countries is inching ever closer towards privatisation.  Although the cases from Turkey, Lebanon and Tunisia were not presented, participants acknowledged that these are many of the common traits of their countries as well.  There was a lively discussion on this topic, where all participants shared experiences from their own country. 

The contributions of the Jordanian participants and facilitators were very valuable; as the workshop was taking place in Jordan we tried to take advantage of being able to listen to some of the local policy makers and implementers.  With the initiative of Dr. Yusuf Khader it was possible to invite some high-level officials from Jordan’s Ministry of Health, including Dr. Jamal Abu Saif and Dr. Riyad Amin Okour (who heads two departments at the MoH) who spoke about their experiences with policy making and implementation.  Dr. Musa Ajlouni, who worked for several years for the Jordanian government and is now an academician, also shared his long-standing experience of health policy-making in the Jordanian context.  Their experience of the practical challenges of policy-making added a valuable dimension to the workshop.  An interesting debate was generated between the academics and the policy practitioners, which highlighted the everlasting difference between theory and practice.  The presentation by Dr. Yusuf Khader on policy briefs was also very informative and comprehensive.

On the fourth day, the participants made a presentation based on the reading materials they were supplied with beforehand. Four groups were created and four journal articles on health policy issues from Mexico, Costa Rica, Russia and the Middle East were distributed to the groups.  A guideline for the systematic analysis of a research paper was also supplied and participants were advised to read the papers using the guideline and create a presentation based on it.  The reading exercise had two purposes: one was to learn the global experiences of policy-making through case studies of different geographical regions, and the other was to learn how to systematically analyse a policy article.  There were dynamic presentations by the participants and lots of debates and discussions.  The workshop ended before lunch with a brief session where participants provided written feedback on the workshop, and finally with the distribution of certificates of attendance.  As the feedback shows, the participants largely found this workshop very useful.  The interest in more group activities in the feedback is well expressed.  Facilitation of some sessions was less interactive and there was scope for more group work.  Thus I think in future workshops we should consider including more group activities built into the programme and make facilitation of the session more interactive.

On another note, we had two wonderful social events; one was the Gala dinner at a very elegant restaurant with delicious traditional foods, and the other was the visit to Jarash, a stunning archaeological site of a 1^st Century Roman city.