The Initiative for Social and Economic Rights (ISER), Uganda launched a pilot mobile phone application (text messaging / SMS) project earlier this year which aims at enhancing community participation in health service delivery in two Sub Counties of Kayunga District , i.e. (Kayonza and Bbaale). Strengthening community participation is the The launch took place at Kakiika Health Centre II in Kayonza Sub – County in Kayunga District. The initiative “Innovations in Civic Engagement in Social and Economic Rights Advocacy in Uganda” is supported by the Open Society Initiative for Eastern Africa (OSIEA) and is intended to enable communities to access information relating to health services and share information that is relevant to addressing the challenges in health service delivery using the short code 6171.
Strengthening community participation is the core of the project. The code 6171 is so far operation on the MTN network but negotiations are ongoing to have it on all telecom networks free of charge. When the messages are received in the system, they are forwarded to the relevant district officials for follow up of the issue at hand. ISER provides accompaniment to the national level if need arises.
This initiative is being seen as a contribution to advancing the right to health in Uganda by catalyzing citizen participation in health rights advocacy and promoting accountability in the health sector. It is a deliberate and systematic strategy to get communities to participate in the health rights advocacy, enable access to information, strengthening the capacity of grass root groups to monitor and self advocate against health rights violations.
The advocacy interventions at the national level are based on information received from communities through the mobile phone application. The mobile phone application is complimented by community dialogues and radio talk shows. The pilot will be replicated country wide after its initial results, but so far the connect has been made with women’s groups, their leaders at the both the sub county and district level.
The District health office led by the District Health Officer (DHO) has been supportive of the work and has been following on the information shared from the communities. They district health officials visited the different health centres in the two sub counties to evaluate the extent of the challenges faced and how best they can be solved. They have since requested the organization to have quarterly health barazas (community dialogues) as a continuous process of engagement between the service providers, duty bearers and the service users.
For a photostory on the initiative click on