On June 11, 2025, the third Steering Committee (SC) meeting of the final phase of the Accessible Quality Healthcare (AQH) Project 2024-2027 was held at the Main Family Medicine Center (MFMC) in Lipjan. Co-chaired by the Ministry of Health and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, the meeting brought together key stakeholders from the Ministry of Health, the National Institute of Public Health (NIPHK), representatives of Kosovo municipalities, Patient Rights Association of Kosovo to review project progress and discuss the AQH capitalization plan to ensure the sustainability of interventions.
Opening the meeting, Mr. Peter Sidler, Deputy Head of International Cooperation at the Embassy of Switzerland and co-chair of the Steering Committee, emphasized the importance of the current project phase. “This phase of the project is crucial in terms of handing over the activities in terms of sustainability,” he stated, also noticing “I found it very great that we have the Steering Committee here [in Lipjan, one of the project demonstration sites] … where actually the project is making a difference.”
The Secretary General of the Ministry of Health, Mr. Naim Bardiqi, also emphasized the importance of this phase, stating, ‘The importance of the third phase of the project is significant as it focuses on consolidating the achievements,’ and highlighted its role in reinforcing progress made with institutions and partners.
Participants had the opportunity to visit the MFMC demonstration site and view firsthand a number of projects implemented interventions. They visited the Patients’ Council, they were informed about the Quality Managment components (e.g. clinical audits) and they viewed the services provided by the nurses of the Health Resource Centers (Këshillimore) to chronic patients, all of which contributing to the continuous and collaborative approach to improving the quality of primary healthcare, especially in the management of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) at the municipality level.
During the meeting, the Director of the Directorate of Health and Social Welfare (DHSW) in Lipjan, Mr. Shkelzen Hajdini, together with the Director of the MFMC, Mr. Agim Krasniqi, presented the project-supported interventions, highlighting the municipality’s role in community mobilization and the value of the demonstration site in sharing lessons learned, and expressed their commitment to sustaining these interventions. Mr. Besim Kodra, from Patients’ Rights Association of Kosovo, presented the role and current scale up state of the Patient Councils. The AQH team completed the SC presentations with the project’s capitalization plan, outlining the next steps for embedding successful practices and ensuring project supported interventions’ sustainability within the public health system.
The SC, which convenes twice a year, will continues to serve as the most important platform for coordination with other initiatives, alignment with national health policies, and information exchange throughout the implementation stages of AQH activities.