Advocacy for Sustainable and Equitable Access to Health

Advocacy for Sustainable and Equitable Access to Health

Amref advocacy initiatives contributes to a health sector that effectively addresses the right to health for communities in Africa, promotes equitable distribution of skilled health workforce, especially midwives, in all communities without disadvantaging the hard to reach communities especially women and children from accessing and enjoying social protection and access to quality health services. In 2017 Amref implemented the following interventions;

 

• Participated in the national level Civil Society Organization (CSO) health budget meetings. This meeting generated evidence that is being used influence health sector planning and funding. In addition review and selection of national level CSO for the Africa Health Accountability Network was undertaken through the HSAP project. These are currently supporting health advocacy initiatives.

• Amref printed and distributed briefs highlighting roles and responsibilities of stakeholders in health advocacy, copies of Patients’ Charter were printed and distributed in 6 districts to empower communities with knowledge on their health rights to create demand for quality health services. The patient’s charter talks about; patients’ Rights, and responsibilities of health workers. This will empower health consumers to demand for high quality care, promote the rights of patients and improve the quality of lives of all Ugandans.

• Relationship was established with two media houses (New vision, Uganda radio Network and NTV) to provide platform to inform communities, policy makers on health issues that require policy and government intervention. Media Advocacy strategy for health system strengthening and advocacy and communications strategy were developed, presented and reviewed during the annual project planning review meeting in Tanzania (17Th -21st July 2017) and final approval done.

• Following the completion of the baseline assessment of the HSAP project, a consultative meeting was held with policy makers to discuss the finding, 15 people from Ministry of Finance, MOH Planning department, members of Parliament, The Human Rights committee including Chairperson of the Health committee in Parliament participated.

• Amref organized a lobby event for the members of the parliamentary forum on the quality of healthcare services in which 15 members of the executive committee of the parliamentary forum on the quality of health services participated and their support and commitment to support HSAP advocacy initiatives including, supporting SHR and HRH advocacy was secured.

• One research was conducted on existing policy framework on Human Resources for Health including budget analysis for family planning budgetary allocation and implication of the Mexico policy on the availability of family planning commodities was done.

• Amref contributed to the Policy recommendations booklet developed for the presidential dialogue and supported the presidential dialogue that attracted more than 30 MPs. Amref and White Ribbon Alliance organized a breakfast meeting to discuss the impact of Health Worker migration that attracted over 15 MPs

• 14 CSOs representatives trained in basic advocacy and lobbying

• Two researches was conducted on the Causes, impact of health worker migration and existing regulatory framework. This findings will inform advocacy in addition to benchmarking key advocacy areas for sustained improvement in health service delivery across targeted audience. The other research focused on budget trends analysis on funding for Family Planning commodities in Uganda, the implementation status of the FP2020 commitments and possible implications of Mexico policy on access to FP commodities to inform advocacy.

• The Country Director attended a conference in Dublin, Ireland on HRH as a key ingredient in the improvement of health service delivery in addition to supporting the attainment of Universal Health Coverage indicators.