A workshop was organized in February 27 2013 to announce the results of the Service Availability and Readiness Assessment (SARA) survey in Libya. Participants included key decision makers from the Ministry of Health, general national council, national and international stakeholders as well as WHO senior technical staff from the country and Regional office.
The post revolution conflict in Libya has caused a lot of damages to the health services infrastructure and hampered the provision of essential services in the country. In an effort to revitalize the country's shattered health system, the need to generate reliable information on the readiness of health facilities to provide basic health-care interventions was considered an essential component of the health systems strengthening process.
SARA was conducted in 2012 to assess the availability and provision of health services and programmes in Libya. SARA is a health facility assessment tool designed to assess and monitor the service availability and readiness of the health sector and generate evidence to support the planning and managing of a health system. It also assesses the damage that could have been sustained during conflicts.
The survey covered all public primary health care facilities in the country. A total of 1379 public primary health care facilities were assessed. The distribution of facilities per region varied widely ranging from 148 facilities in Nafussa Mountain to only 13 facilities in Al-Jufra and Ghat. Nafussa Mountain had the highest number of surveyed facilities. The survey findings will be used to identify immediate post conflict interventions that will be implemented to restore the health system's functionality.
The survey results are available on a dedicated website which provides a geographical information database for all health facilities in Libya.
Related links
Related documents
SARA, a methodology for measuring health systems strengthening [pdf, 2.64Mb]
List of service availability indicators [pdf, 674kb]
List of service readiness indicators [pdf, 1.15Mb]
