Piqued by inadequate budgetary allocation and poor implementation of policies in the health sector in Nigeria, the White Ribbon Alliance Nigeria (WRAN) in collaboration with the West Africa Academy for Public Health (WAAPH) has organise a 5 days Training workshop on sustainable Health financing and advocacy in Jos, the Plateau State capital.
 
The training workshop which is targeted at enhancing the capacity of Civil Society Organisation CSOs & Media in Plateau State to take forward the implementation of the National Health Act 2014, advocacy for Community Health Insurance Scheme (CHIS), Budget tracking and the passage of the Primary Health Care Under One Roof (PHCOUR) legislation to improve health services at state and Local Government levels.
 
WRAN is a network of advocates across Nigeria that strives to upload the rights of all women to safe pregnancy and child birth which convenes diverse, national and local coalition that advocate for the right policies, sufficient resources, delivery and implementation of commitment and information dissemination so that all girls and women are able to demand their rights to safe pregnancy and child birth.
 
Indeed the high level attention and increased momentum for safe motherhood are driving national progress toward improved maternal, new born and child health service delivery and utilization.
 
Obviously, while policies have been designed and commitments made to ensure that women receive quality maternal health care, however, obstacles to these good intention remain especially for the country’s poorest women who suffer disproportionately from adequate care.
 
Beside collaboration, WRAN seeks to capitalize on the robust network that it has built over the past six years, linking local grassroots effort to state national leaders and to global platform in order to bring about rigorous advocacy for improved MNCH service delivery and utilization.
 
However, profound social and political changes can only be made with the involvement of an active, civil society that can engage the government to bring about change which aims to save women’s lives by advocating for improved delivery of maternal and new born health at all levels of care.
 
Presenting a paper titled ” National health Act: status, implementation and challenges at the workshop Felix Abraham Obi, of health policy research group identifies low political will, delay in appointing Minister, lack of proper funding and over dependence on donor agencies as some of the challenges facing the implementation of National Health Act in Nigeria.
 
Read more at http://leadership.ng/news/560318/group-advocates-for-sustainable-health-...