The main purpose of the Information Communication and Dissemination programme is to promote and support activities at regional and national levels that will facilitate efficient sharing of information within the ECSA region. The programme was established with the recognition that Information plays a crucial role in raising the awareness and understanding of the health challenges.in the region especially among policy makers, programme managers, collaborating agencies and donors. The programme plays a key role in promoting the sharing of information and improving regional cooperation in developing information and comunication technology capacities as a means of realizing a region-wide health information network. A major component of the network is the Information Dissemination Centres (IDCs) established in all member states. The programme intends to strengthen further all IDCs to ensure that a vibrant and sustained network is in place in ECSA.

Programme Accomplishments

Some of the major accomplishment of the programme include a extensive upgrading of ECSA secretariat Information Technology (IT) capacity including the establishment of a new Local Area Network, a website and high speed ethernet cable connection to the Internet.In addition, there has been a reorganizaiton of the secretariat's resource centre/library, which is not available, on-line and finally the introduction of a new quarterly newsletter entitled 'ECSA Events'.