The Equity and Access Sub Group: current achievements and future challenges in promoting equity in the health sector in Malawi

This paper first sets the context for the Equity and Access Sub-Group (E&ASG) by describing the move towards Sector Wide Approaches (SWAps). SWAps are a new concept through which the Ministry of Health is delivering services through mechanisms of basket funding and decentralization of services once delivered by vertical programmes to districts. SWAps present new opportunities of enhancing equity and access to services for all groups in Malawi. Opportunities for achieving this lies within a constitution of new partnerships for the advocacy and monitoring of the performance of the health sector in meeting the needs of different social and economic groups. These new partnerships include the Health Sector Review Group; Monitoring and Evaluation Research Technical Working Group and the Equity and Access Sub-Group (E&ASG). This paper describes the E&ASG, a good example of these new partnerships. The memberships and terms of reference of this group are described.