HIGHLIGHTS
- Technical advice informing the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s health policy and programming.
- Gender equality, disability equity and social inclusion are integrated into health advice.
- More than two-thirds of SHS’s technical advisers are women.
PROJECT
Specialist Health Services (SHS)
The Challenge
The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) needs to respond rapidly to emerging policy and programming needs across its global, regional and bilateral health portfolios.
The Approach
The Abt-managed Specialist Health Services program provides DFAT access to high quality, tailored technical health advice to inform DFAT’s health policy and programming.
SHS secures diverse technical health advisers for DFAT in Canberra and across the Indo-Pacific. The health advisers are deployed on either a short-term or long-term basis to meet DFAT’s requirements.
SHS ensures gender equality, disability equity and social inclusion considerations are integrated as appropriate.
The Results
- SHS has a panel of hundreds of technical health advisers worldwide – with more than two-thirds of them women.
- SHS delivers learning events to enhance DFAT officers’ knowledge.
- 92% of users reported high levels of satisfaction, 97% of advisers were rated as good quality through feedback surveys.