Mechanisms should also be developed for pooling expertise in areas related to achieving progress towards the attainment of the health related Millennium Development goals (MDGs), and the establishment of peer review of performance and partnerships.
The forum equally reached a consensus on: the establishment of regular mechanisms for collaboration; focusing on efforts to strengthen country capacities to lead partnerships, and using on-going reform in the United Nations system to support country and regional reform efforts.
The meeting focused on four broad areas - child survival, safe motherhood, accelerating universal access to HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care, and scaling up the health workforce in Africa.
 
For each of the themes, participants critically analysed the current challenges facing the region and outlined ways of overcoming them, with one of the sessions devoted to the decentralization of WHO operations in Africa.
The decentralization process, which has culminated in the establishment of Inter-Country Support Teams (ICSTs) in three base locations, is designed to respond to the high and growing disease burden in the region, requests for timely interventions by countries, and the increasing number of players in the health sector in the region.
The forum also agreed to address the critical issues of optimal staffing aligned to country needs, the necessity for an appropriate mix of skills and competencies at the ICSTs, and adaptation by stakeholders to unfolding institutional changes.
 
"We are encouraged by the continuing support and unwavering commitment of our partners, and their very active participation in this forum," said WHO Regional Director for Africa, Luis Gomes Sambo.
"The consensus reached at this forum has brought us closer than ever before to our dream of harmonization and alignment as spelt out in the Paris Declaration endorsed in March 2005. We are now headed for better coordination, more unified action and longer term commitment to ensure that the people of Africa derive maximum benefits from the scaling up of proven and cost-effective health interventions," he added.

 
Closing the forum, Kenya's Assistant Minister for Health Services, Wilfred Machage, said: "As we focus on delivering using a single country plan of action, let us remember that it is only a strong and stable health system that can absorb more resources."
According to him: "The backbone of any strong health system is the workforce and I must say we are losing too many well-trained young people to partners. It is therefore imperative that we build the capacities of Ministries of Health so that they can deliver their mandate effectively." 11 March 2007 - PANA