Transcription of interview with Minister Diop in English

My name is Mrs. Therese Coumba Diop. I have been the Minister of Health, Prevention and Public Hygiene for two months. I am a transportation engineer specialized in logistics. So, successively, I was Head of the Road Transportation service in the Thies region  and engineering research specialist for the Senegalese Shippers’ Council. I managed the Trainmar Center in Dakar. Trainmar is a word based on the English  “training in the maritime field” (Training in the area of Harbor and Maritime Management).
So this center was able to delocalize two Master’s programs from French Universities to Senegal, and this gave the opportunity to the Senegalese people, that is Senegalese engineers and business executives, to stay in Senegal while working on their degree, either the “Master’s in Logistics Management and Transportation Engineering” or the “International Business Degree.” So, this is a delocalized French degree in Senegal, focused particularly on logistics.
I also have an MBA in management and a Master’s degree in logistics from the University of Toulouse, with an emphasis on employment systems.

[Question in English from interviewer]
Interpreter : You just started your new responsibilities; what were your first impressions?

Mrs. Diop: I noted numerous challenges to address. I realized that at the Ministry of Health there were mostly personnel issues. So we have a personnel deficit. I also observed that we have to address the challenges and reach the Millennium Development Goals concerning mostly the reduction of maternal and child mortality rates. And as the President of Senegal asked us, and he has a proactive vision of Health and emphasizes prevention, we must act preemptively and have a preventive policy.
The President also  implemented some innovative ideas in terms of health, particularly our concepts of “doctors without a coat” and “Badienou gokh.”
We are not waiting for individuals to come to the health centers; instead, physicians go directly to the populations to give advice. This is mostly a preventive effort.

[Question in English from interviewer]
Interpreter : Since earlier you mentioned the issues of personnel and maternal mortality, have you thought of strategies to tackle this personnel deficit and maternal mortality? Do you have strategies to solve these problems?

Mrs. Diop: We are thinking of staffing health structures with highly technical personnel, so that we can find out all the needs of the populations. Also, we’d like to raise the technical capacity of the health structure, which will greatly reduce the rate of maternal and child mortality.

[Question in English from interviewer]
Interpreter : In regard to MLI, how do you think that MLI can help the Ministry; in what areas?

Mrs. Diop: We would like MLI to help us mostly in the area of capability strengthening at the level of human resources at the Ministry of Health. They could also support us by offering scholarships, if available, for the professional development of staff members.  At the same time, it would be good to see what programs they can support—those that can really decrease mortality rates, as I said earlier. Particularly capability and leadership strengthening. How to support managers in terms of management, and mostly leadership.