The Ethiopian "model family": Primary Health Care Provision in the Developmental state
Aiming to provide universal access to basic health services and empower communities to take charge of their own health, the Ethiopian government has during the last decade rolled out a comprehensive health extension program. This has recently been complemented with a community-based approach mobilizing women in ‘model families’ as agents of change, as a part of the government’s society wide mobilization for development. Organized in ‘developmental armies’, women in the model families, along with ‘model farmers’ and ‘model students’ etc, are instrumental in the government’s efforts to economically and politically transform the country. Under the CMI-UiB collaboration agreement, we will organize a workshop which will lead to a research project that aims to understand how the model family initiative has been received in local communities in different regions in Ethiopia with particular emphasis on the social and political context of implementation.
