Taiwan-Somaliland healthcare cooperation is kicking off: For mutual assistances, for mutual benefits and for a better life

To enhance the health care cooperation between Taiwan and Somaliland, Taiwan Representative Office in the Republic of Somaliland held a virtual conference on “Maternal and Infant Health Care Improvement Project and sharing experience in fighting COVID-19” at Taiwan Representative Office on 16^th November.

Cooperation related parties including Ministry of Health Development, Hargeisa Group Hospital, Ministry of Foreign Affairs ROC (Taiwan), TaiwanICDF (International Cooperation and Development Fund), Taiwan and Somaliland Representative Offices and Kaohsiung Medical University Chung-Ho Memorial Hospital attended the said conference.

Today’s conference is the follow-up of the signing of the ICDF Cooperation Framework Agreement by Foreign Minister of the ROC (Taiwan) Dr Jaushieh Joseph Wu and Foreign Minister of the Republic of Somaliland Yasin Hagi Mohamoud on 17 August 2020, the date that Taiwan Representative Office was officially established. Today’s conference is also the follow-up of the meeting that Ambassador Allen C. Lou called on President Muse Bihi Abdi on 26^th October to brief the Taiwan-Somaliland comprehensive cooperation. President Bihi has high expectation on Taiwan-Somaliland health care cooperation to benefit the Somalilanders.

Health care cooperation is the “Flagship” cooperation between Taiwan and Somaliland. Taiwan develops 4 dimensions of health care cooperation to work with the like-minded countries to implement them in Somaliland. Taiwan will continue to share the experience and capacity building with Somaliland.

Taiwan Representative Office, on behalf of Taiwan Government, also donated 2,880 PCR Reagents which accounts for around 20% of Somaliland’s test cases and surgical masks to the Ministry of Health Development to support Somaliland proactively to combat the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic. It is worth of mentioning that the surgical masks are sponsored by Takming University of Science and Technology of Taiwan. It also shows the efforts to integrate the strategic medical resources provided by the Taiwan Government and private sectors to channel to Somaliland.

Taiwan also in the last months supported Somaliland to combat Covid-19 with medical equipment including high-quality masks, protective clothes, PPE, tablets, infrared forehead thermometers, infrared thermal imagers which can detect multi-body temperatures, high-quality PCRs (According to the report done by Ministry of Health Development, these PCRs are the best among those donated by other countries and WHO) , reagents, quality rice to relive the food shortage caused by Covid-19 and fund for disaster relief.

Taiwan can help. Taiwan is helping. Taiwan can contribute and has long been contributing on many fronts. Our effort is proudly described as the Taiwan Model. The spirit of the Taiwan Model is: Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime. We are ready to share with the East African countries.