Building institutions that protect people

From the desk

Welcome to the first issue of Policy to Practice. Each quarter I will share what we are learning as Somalia builds its social health insurance system, what our research shows, and what it may mean for policy and practice. Issues will be short and practical.

Field notes: social health insurance in practice

Building the Social Health Insurance Authority means getting the foundations right: governance, an enrolment strategy, purchaser–provider arrangements, provider readiness, quality assurance, claims architecture, data systems and phased implementation.

The sequencing matters as much as the design. Agree a feasible service promise, build the systems to deliver it, then expand on the basis of evidence and learning.

Financial Protection Begins with Trust

Research desk: new in 2026

• Operationalising Health Service Delivery in Somalia: A Health Systems Policy Analysis Toward Universal Health Coverage. BMC Health Services Research, 2026, published 15 July 2026.
• Validity, Digital Responsibility, and the Community Health Workforce in Fragile Contexts. IJQHC Communications.
• Hospital acquired infections in Mogadishu, a review of infection prevention and control practices and implications for antimicrobial resistance. World Journal of Clinical Infectious Diseases.
• Patterns and determinants of opioid and narcotic use among youth in Mogadishu, a mixed-methods study. Journal of Substance Use.
• Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease Management in Somalia. Read the digest.

Milestone: a doctorate in demography

This year I completed a PhD in Demography and Social Sciences at Paris American International University. The reason is practical. As I told the university, “Designing social health insurance is, at its core, applied demography and social science.”

Mentorship corner: follow one number

A classroom exercise from the MSc course in health systems management, worth trying in any district office:

Select one district health indicator. Map the data pathway from facility register to district dashboard. Identify where errors may enter the system, who validates the data, and how managers use the information to make decisions.

On the reading list

• World Health Organization (2007). Everybody’s Business: Strengthening Health Systems to Improve Health Outcomes.
• de Savigny, D. and Adam, T. (eds) (2009). Systems Thinking for Health Systems Strengthening. Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research and WHO.
• Kruk, M. E. et al. (2018). High-quality health systems in the Sustainable Development Goals era: time for a revolution. The Lancet Global Health.

With best wishes,
Dr Abdulrazaq Yusuf Ahmed (Dr Jalaaludiin)