Collaboration between health promoting actors in a rural community - Maciene, Mozambique

Abstract: In community health promotion intersectoral collaboration is essential. Important actors are the governmental health system, the civil society and Non-Governmental organisations (NGOs). The aim of this qualitative thesis was to examine what kind of cooperation existed in a rural community in Mozambique and to describe the actor’s experiences of collaboration and how it can be improved. This was done by conducting interviews. The result of the study showed that different ways of cooperation existed, intersectoral as well as side by side and intrasectoral. The extent of intersectoral collaboration was fairly loose, such as networks, alliances or partnership. All the informants were positive to collaboration, they had experienced that people had been helped and their knowledge in health issues was improved as an effect of joint efforts. The experience among the actors was that the collaboration had improved and that they had become closer together over the years. Problems to cooperation that were mentioned concerned dropouts and financial issues. The informants were unanimous that it was necessary to broaden the collaboration. They were concerned over the sustainability in the different projects as well as the sustainability in cooperation itself.