14 July 2020 · Global Partnership for Zero Leprosy

GPZL’s 2020 Country Partners

The Global Partnership for Zero Leprosy (GPZL) is working toward a world without leprosy through a country-by-country strategy. We bring together partners in-country and international stakeholders to work on country-led customized strategies that address local needs and priorities to end leprosy (Hansen’s disease). The Global Partnership for Zero Leprosy spearheads this work in close collaboration with WHO’s Global Leprosy Programme, and offers support to national programmes through a unique country model approach. This model builds country capacity through country reviews, roadmaps, and resources and tools.
GPZL has recently selected country partners for 2020. 23 countries applied, and to select the 2020 country partners, GPZL examined a variety of indicators of readiness for country partnership. These indicators included national data (such as epidemiological data), programme-related criteria (such as programme management methodology and responsiveness to innovation), and availability of human resources. The presence of an in-country partner network and the engagement of that network, programme needs, and other political criteria, such as security in the country, and the timing of national political events were also considered. GPZL worked to ensure inclusion of low, medium and high burden countries, and representation of a variety of geographic regions. Partners selected for 2020 were selected for their readiness for engagement with GPZL and countries that were not selected for this year will be considered in future years.

We are happy to announce that our selected partners for 2020 are the following countries: Cambodia, Côte d’Ivoire, Federated States of Micronesia, Ghana, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda. In addition to working with these countries, GPZL continues to support Nepal, a 2019 country partner.

GPZL has notified the 2020 country partners of their selection and begun working with their National Leprosy Programme Managers to identify programatic needs and capacity for in-country work during the COVID-19 pandemic. Updates on the progress of these country partnership will be released in the newsletter and the Newsroom page of zeroleprosy.org. For more information about these work groups, or for questions about GPZL’s 2020 country partners, please contact us.