END in Africa Project Team Wins Award for Program Excellence

May 24th, 2017

END in Africa Project Team Members Yudaya Mawanda, Senior Program Officer (L), and Bolivar Pou, Project Director (R). Photo: FHI 360

In April 2017, the END in Africa project team was awarded the 2016 Impact Award for Program Excellence. This award recognizes the outstanding contributions of an individual staff member or team to FHI 360’s leadership in global and domestic health, education and development. This contribution may have been demonstrated by promoting integrated development solutions and/or through the implementation of cutting-edge evidence-based approaches, intense involvement in a program’s design and development, and/or efforts to ensure that a project meets its deliverables on budget, on time, and with top-notch management and responsiveness to client and stakeholder feedback. The award recognizes demonstrated efforts to achieve quality, satisfaction and impact in programs furthering FHI 360’s mission.

The END in Africa project aims to reduce the burden of seven neglected tropical diseases in six West African countries: Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Niger, Sierra Leone, and Togo, under the eight-year USAID Control of Neglected Tropical Diseases Cooperative Agreement. These diseases affect over one billion people worldwide, with over two billion people at risk, especially women, children and those living in poverty in remote rural areas or urban slums. Country-level project achievements of the team include:

• Reduced NTD disease burden ahead of global schedule
• Supported Togo to become the first African country to submit a dossier to WHO for verification of lymphatic filariasis elimination
• Supported Ghana to become the first country in Africa to eliminate trachoma
• Helped get five of six project countries on track to eliminate LF and trachoma by 2018, two years before the WHO 2020 target
• Surpassed drug treatment coverage goals using existing government networks and channels
• Achieved > 80% program coverage for 7 NTDs over the past 5 years.
• Delivered about 430 million NTD treatments to over 202 million people.

The END in Africa project team members are: Bolivar Pou, Yudaya Mawanda, Kathy Sanchez, Joseph Koroma, Egide Ndayishimye, Ernest Mensah, Paul Yikpotey, Samuel Wayoe, Patrick Atikpo Mawulolo, Brigitte Potison, Florence Asamoah, Laudmas Allotey, Clifford Dugbenu, Reuben Dakpo, Virginie Ettiegne-Traore, Théodore Yoro Séry, and Kouassi Ackoundou. 

The full list of winners is available on the FHI 360 2016 Impact Awards website.