Background: Ethiopia met most of the health mellinnium development goals. The number of citizens dying from preventable and curable health problems is still high. This is due to unfavorable workforce development and managment practices among other issues. Developement partners have been providing techncial assstance through seconding high caliber staff. However, there was no empirical evidence on secondment practices in Ethiopia . A USAID funded HRH Project; therefore, conducted a national study on magnitude, distribution, managent practices, contributions and barriers of secondment in the health sector.

Methods: A cross sectional study using mixed methods approach was conducted in 2017. A census of 20 federal and regional health sector organizations  was done. A sample of 472 seconded staff and 71 key informants were included. Self administer questionnaires and key informant interview guides were used to collect data. The quantitative data were entered into EPIDATA, and cleaned and trasferred into SPSS V.20 for analysis. Descriptive statsitics were calculated. The qualitative data was thematically analysed using NVIVO v11.

Findings: About 9.3% of staff at the FMOH, RHBs and health agencies were seconded. Most (85.0%) of them were males. Average duration at the secondment post was 22 months with range of 3 months to 8 years. About 36% were public health experts. And about 32% were health professionals. Many (37%) did not have postgraduate level training. No organization had guideline for managing secondment. Needs assessment for hiring and performance monitoring for working were uncommon. Recruitment processes were reproted as non trasparent. Majority of seconded staff were assigned to ad hoc tasks (tasks not listed in the job descriptions). In addtion, limited incentives, inadequate logistics, and lack of supervision and feedback were barriers for seconment roles. Majority of seconded  staff felt they were effective in acheivng seconmdement goals. No health sector organization had registery for the seconded staff.

Conclusions and Recommendations:Significant number of experts at FMOH, RHBs and health agencies were seconded. They provided indespensable contributions to the health system. But, there existed weaknesses such as lack of managing policy and guideline. Seconded staff were hired without needs assessment. Their performace was not properly monitored. The health system should collaborate with partners for proper needs assessment, planning, recruitng and performance moniting. Secondment guideline should be developed.