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 organize 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 Organization 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.
 
Program Manager, ACHIEVE Project, White Ribbon Alliance Nigeria, Afoke Igwe while speaking at the workshop said the organization is strategically networked with important stakeholders in governance and in the health sector in the states where it has strong alliances.
 
She also said, the organization will use the networks to engage in dialogue and advocacy approaches that will bring together all of the stakeholders and CSOs cum local communities to identify barriers to the delivery of quality maternal health services and also come to agreement on the appropriate strategies to address them.
 
Igwe further said that the outcome may include new policies, sufficient resources allocation, proper implementation of policies and expenditure of the resources, or addressing misinformation, lack of knowledge, community financial constraints or other barrier that prevent women and their babies from accessing life saving care.
 
According to her, the organization’s unique capacity is in both developing innovative, locally-owned, and evidence- based advocacy to bring about accountability including campaigns that are made up of  relevant strategies and tactics.
 
She added that  the organisation has  evidence of the experienced success in building effective bottom-up social accountability mechanisms through policy change processes and evidence gathering support for policy and operational changes which is resulting in improvement in health service delivery.
 
Speaking on the achievement of WRAN Igwe said “ WRAN is presently a technical advocacy partner with Christian Aid to strengthen existing or emerging health advocacy networks on National Health Act (NHAct) PHCOUR, Community Health Insurance Scheme (CHIS) campaigning and budget influencing among others in Plateau and Benue states.’
 
“ The organization is currently advocating for citizen led social accountability on Reproductive Maternal Newborn, Child and adolescent healthcare(RMNCH) in Niger state; which is championed by the first lady of the state, worked with other like-minded organization like HERFON to push for the passage and assent of the national health bill (Act)”, she added.
 
Igwe further noted that WRAN has successfully advocated for the introduction, approval and implementation of the policy on respectful maternity care RMC at all levels adding that the policy was introduced to the National Council on health by the Minister of health in 2013.
 
She said, the policy was approved by all member noting that they also pushed for the implementation of the policy in kwara state where health workers from six facilities were trained to uphold the rights of child bearing women and deliver quality care.
 
According to her, in order to sustain the RMC program, the Kwara state government also included RMC as a line up item in its 2015 budget which is also as a result of WRAN’s advocacy.
 
Finally, she said the organisation has worked with FHI360 and the FMoH to push for the approval of the policy on increasing access to family planing services inject ables which allows trained community health extension workers to provide these services, the policy was approved in 2012 by the National council of health.
 
strengthen existing or emerging health advocacy networks on National Health Act (NHAct) PHCOUR, Community Health Insurance Scheme (CHIS) campaigning and budget influencing among others in Plateau and Benue states.’
 
“ The organization is currently advocating for citizen led social accountability on Reproductive Maternal Newborn, Child and adolescent healthcare(RMNCH) in Niger state; which is championed by the first lady of the state, worked with other like-minded organization like HERFON to push for the passage and assent of the national health bill (Act)”, she added.
 
Read more at http://leadership.ng/news/561504/wran-advocates-sustainable-health-finan...