Article by: Robinah Kaitiritimba
Community of Practitioners on Accountability and Social Action in Health (COPASAH) is steadily growing in the east and southern African region. The growing number of members will be a resource in fostering social accountability. The new members from different thematic areas of the health sector will add value to COPASAH due to the different strengths, expertise and experiences they will bring on board. In Uganda alone, eight new members were recruited to join COPASAH and other organisations have also indicated an interest in joining. The East and Central African region COPASAH secretariat is also in the final stages of signing an agreement with Centro de Estudios para la Equidad y Gobernanza en los Sistemas de Salud (GEGSS) for a project fostering sharing and learning between COPASAH members for improved social accountability in health funded by Accountability and Monitoring in Health Initiative (AMHI) of the Open Society Foundations. The proposal was discussed and approved by COPASAH during the steering committee meeting held in Beijing, China, in September 2012. The project aims to consolidate COPASAH as a knowledge-generation and sharing community through the implementation of innovative capacity building strategies for its members and increasing the visibility of COPASAH at regional and global level. The above project is designed to meet the needs of the members identified during the needs assessment conducted in Kampala before the project design. In addition, it also meets capacity needs of members though knowledge and experience sharing. Uganda National Health Users/Consumers Organisation (UNHCO) and Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) will be the implementing partners.
To further support social accountability initiatives, UNHCO submitted a concept on voice and accountability to Demographic Governance Facility (DGF) which has succeeded to the concept note stage and UNHCO has been given a go ahead to write a full proposal, which was submitted and now awaits final appraisal by DGF. The proposal was submitted in partnership with two COPASAH members- Kapchorwa NGO Forum and Pallisa Civil Society Organisation Network. The project will further strengthen social accountability in health through strengthening capacity of community structures (civil society organisations, health unit management committees, and community leaders) and citizens for increased transparency and accountability in health sector in Uganda.
UNHCO and TARSC mobilised CSOs in the region to implement the health literacy programme. TARSC organised a workshop to train staff of health sector CSOs working with communities on health on literacy modules in 2012. One key action point from the meeting was; the participant organisations organise a community meeting and facilitate using module two of the health literacy manual and come up with community action plan. UNHCO organised a health literacy meeting in Kamuli distict in Balawoli subcounty selected after a consultation with district health officer of Kamuli in early March. Using module two of the health literacy manual the communities identified different health challenges in the community and access to safe water was identified as the major challenge which needed to be acted on by duty bearers. UNHCO again took the same community through module four on the healthy environments. Through careful facilitation using module four, the communities were able to identify both healthy and unhealthy practices in relation to healthy
environment. The community members made an action plan to change the unhealthy practices.
This article is taken from the 3rd edition of COPASAH Communique, the newsletter of COPASAH. To read the full newsletter CLICK HERE