allAfrica.com: Nigeria: Global Networking in London (Page 1 of 2)

The participants at the networking and experience sharing meeting which was held at the London office of the International Planned Parenthood Federation arrived at the venue of the meeting with great expectations.

Coming from warm countries, they had a surprise awaiting them.

British weather was at its most unpredictable level that week. What was so supposed to be a hot, sunny and bright summer turned into a cold, grey and wet one. Weather experts said it was the coldest summer in two decades!!

As British residents and tourists bemoaned their fate, the task ahead of participants was too important for them to get distracted by the weather. They ignored it as they began their meeting which brought together partners from the four countries implementing a new reproductive health advocacy project. They include Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria and Tanzania. Others are the technical partners from John Hopkins University School of Public Health at Bloomberg, and the staff of IPPF London, the coordinating organisation.

In her welcome address, Valerie Defillipo, gave a brief overview of the Country Global Pathways (CGP) concept which is a two-level advocacy project. The first level is about getting countries to increase their commitment to Reproductive Health (RH) with emphasis on increased funding. The second level of advocacy was concerned with countries mobilising support for RH at the global level such as bilateral donors, foundations, the Global Fund, etc.

After her speech, there were presentations from resource persons Pierre LaRamee and Sarah Shaw on various components of the CGP ranging from regional spotlight to theory and practice of country level advocacy. The presentations identified the major factors that shape political priority. Among these are Domestic Advocacy whereby advocates in developing countries design initiatives that make their issue, which is reduction of maternal deaths, a political priority. Others are Transnational Influence which is mainly efforts by international agencies such as the World Health Organisation (WHO) to push governments to prioritise the issue and the National Political Environment which takes cognisance of the factors relating to the context in which advocates work within their countries.

In Nigeria where a new regime has just taken over, political changes that positively or adversely affect prospects for safe motherhood practices are listed under the political environment. Jeremy Shifman of the Centre for Global Development said political scientists who study how political agenda are set by policymakers outline the three factors that are indicators of political priority. One is when political leaders publicly and privately express sustained concern for the issue.

The initiator of the CGP advocacy idea, Dr Duff Gillespie, presented a paper titled Hurdles to the Achievement of the Country Global Objectives. He noted that the African Union (AU) is the relevant body to engage with on the African scene and cited a research conducted before the Maputo plan of action. That research provided the key finding that fed into the Maputo plan of action which is a comprehensive framework for addressing RH issues in Africa. Dr Gillespie said Maputo was an African plan designed by the people who know what they needed to advance the RH agenda. He challenged the advocates from Africa to use Maputo for advocacy and leverage resources. They could develop country specific plans of action for implementing Maputo which donors would be willing to fund from state to the local level.

The next session was about Pathway Experiences of Working in a Coalition and various countries then made presentations on their implementation of the CGP. The coordinator of the project in Mexico, Esperanza Delgado, made a presentation on how they were able to establish a coalition in Mexico which is housed within MEXFAM which is the IPPF member association in the country. The coalition began its implementation of the project by developing a political mapping tool and had since found working with parliamentarians vital for achieving results. The coalition had been organising-awareness raising activities and making in put into policies.

The Nigerian presentation was made by my humble self and highlighted the work AdvocacyNigeria network of advocates established in the seven project states of Bauchi, Borno, Jigawa, Kano, Kaduna, Katsina, and Sokoto states to conduct advocacy activities for the reduction of maternal mortality and morbidity. The major focus of the network was advocacy activities to ensure budget increase for RH, provision of free maternal and child healthcare services at federal, state and local government levels and promoting enactment of a law in all states to ensure that the policy is properly funded and sustained.

There were country spotlights which featured presentations from Egypt and Tanzania. The Egyptian coalition was just being established at the time of the meeting and was represented by participants from the official from the Arab world region of the IPPF. In her presentation, Rym Esseghairi said the process for the establishment of the coalition was gathering momentum and she was interested in learning from those that had established their own. The Tanzanian group was represented by two participants Felister Bwana and Arthur Jason Mtafya. They reported that progress had been made in mobilising the relevant civil society organisations in Tanzania to form the coalition and a framework for the engagement with policymakers had been developed. Some of the agencies earmarked for advocacy are the National Assembly, the Finance and Economic committees and relevant central ministries.

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