The renforcement pihi activity is aligned with the development objective of the benin health project, by supporting ¿increased use of high impact health services and healthy behaviors¿ with a…

The renforcement pihi activity is aligned with the development objective of the benin health project, by supporting ¿increased use of high impact health services and healthy behaviors¿ with a particular focus on the health of the most vulnerable groups. The activity also supports the three sub-purposes/intermediate results (IRS) of the benin health project: 1)improved delivery of integrated high-impact health services, 2)improved preventive and care seeking behavior of empowered communities, 3)improved performance of key health systems. USAID suggested that bupdos intervention may cover a set of health zones in mono department as follows: come, bopa, houeyogbe, grand popo, lokossa & athieme. Health zones for the follow-on period have been carefully selected in consultation with the MOH and DDS to permit coordination of national coverage of community pihi services supported by a variety of technical and financial partners. The following criteria were used for selection of geographic areas: ¿ discussions with government of benin counterparts, ¿ donor coverage for community health (gaps and new programs), ¿ epidemiological data, ¿ alignment with decentralization principles, including preference for covering entire departments where feasible and one recipient per department, ¿ support for sustainability of previous USAID-funded activities, ¿ recipients' organizational experience in department or communes, ¿ balanced workload (number of RCS supported and capacity considerations.