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Event
Multisectoral budget tracking workshop for Francophone Africa kicks off in Dakar
Location/Venue
Dakar, Senegal
Date (Start/End)
6 - 9 May, 2014
Event type
Global
6-9 MAY 2014 | DAKAR, SENEGAL

More than 75 representatives of national parliaments from health and budget committees, civil society, ministries of health and finance, media and development agencies from Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Niger and Senegal are meeting this week in Dakar in a workshop that aims to build their capacities to engage with budgets and undertake budget advocacy for improved women’s and children’s health.

Vice President of the National Assembly of Senegal, Honourable Mrs Awa Gueye, inaugurated the meeting at the King Fahd hotel on behalf of the Inter-Parliamentary Union. Underlining the relevance of this topic, she noted that “while many commitments have been made to improve women’s and children’s health, these cannot be implemented without appropriate budget allocation and expenditure,” urging participants to work together to ensure the existence of appropriate budget lines that are garnished on a regular basis, ensuring strong oversight mechanisms. Also speaking at the opening, Mrs Christine Muhigana, Deputy Regional Director for UNICEF, pointed to the importance of strengthening the capacity of stakeholders, particularly community level actors around accountability for results and resources.

This capacity building workshop, organized by the WHO, UNICEF, PMNCH, Save the Children, the InterParliamentary Union, Family Care International, under the auspices of Harmonization for Health in Africa, builds on the August 2013 Nairobi workshop organized on the same theme for Anglophone African countries (including Kenya, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Uganda). This workshop also comprises an important component of the EU-Luxemburg-WHO Universal Health Coverage Partnership as the workshop focuses on the Partnership’s 3 pillars of health policy, health financing, and aid effectiveness*.

  • Build capacity of all stakeholders in country teams to understand how to undertake health budget advocacy;
  • Foster greater collaboration among stakeholders from different constituencies who influence budget processes in countries; and
  • Support the development of budget advocacy strategies that build on the advocacy plans of existing RMNCH or health civil society coalitions.

The meeting will run through 9 May 2014 and organizing partners will work with civil society participants in country to develop joint budget advocacy strategies to be implemented by all partners.

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*WHO in partnership with the European Union and Luxemburg is supporting 19 countries, including the 5 countries targeted at this workshop, in health policy, health financing, and aid effectiveness