The European Union funded project “Technical Assistance to Support the Strengthening of the Health Information System in Tajikistan” provided information on project implementation at the fifth Project Steering Committee meeting held in March. The main project goal is to strengthen the health management system, used by the Ministry of Health and Social Protection of Population of the Republic of Tajikistan, the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Tajikistan, and the Directorate of Acts of Civil State.

A DHIS 2 electronic data collection system passed the testing phase and is now being used nationwide for online data entry since January 1, 2015. The DHIS 2 system has been fully adapted to perform the functions of data entry, analysis, and reporting. More than 1,100 specialists from the Ministry of Health and Social Protection of Population of the Republic of Tajikistan and the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Tajikistan have been trained in DHIS 2 system use and statistics.

From January 1, 2015, the acts of civil state are being entered in online mode in the Palace of Weddings and four Offices of Civil State Registration in Dushanbe city, and Rudaki, Shakhrinav, and Gissar districts.

Additional project activities included three international study tours to Norway, Moldova, and India for representatives of the Ministry of Health and Social Protection of Population of the Republic of Tajikistan, the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Tajikistan, and the Agency for Statistics under the President of the Republic of Tajikistan.

“The start of 2015 was decisive for project implementation. In this year, for the first time, yearly statistical health reports have been produced by the DHIS 2 system in online mode. Implementation of the information system at the Offices of Civils State Registration is another important task of the project. We hope to successfully complete these tasks with the support of our partners”, said Elena Maximenco, Project Team Leader.

The project "Technical Assistance to Support the Strengthening of the Health Information System", funded by the European Union with a budget of EUR 3.4 million, will contribute to implementation of electronic reporting in the health care and civil registration systems at the national level. The project is implemented by EPOS Health Management (Germany) in consortium with ICON-Institute Public Sector (Germany), Oslo University (Norway), and IrfatC (Tajikistan). The project will run until May 2016.