What should be done to reduce and eventually stop the spread of cholera?
Efforts being undertaken are enough
0%
Appeal for assistance from humanitarian organisations
0%
The government should declare a state of emergency
0%
Deal with the water and sewage problems first, cholera will eventually stop
0%
Total votes: 0
Advocacy & Lobbying

Over the years, CWGH has engaged the Zimbabwe parliament and government at large to influence policy formulation and resourcing of health services. Our organisation has been invited to sit in the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health. We have used campaigns, meetings and IEC (Information, Education and Communication) materials to influence health decisions at local and district levels and collaborated with various institutions at regional level, to collectively influence decision.

CWGH is partnering with the People’s Health Movement in the Right to Health Campaign; it is also a member of the Regional Network in Equity in Health in East and southern Africa (EQUINET), co-ordinated by TARSC, and the Health Civil Society in East and Southern Africa. We have also done work with HAI-Africa on Access to Essential Medicines and SEATIN on health and trade.

Access to Essential Medicines

30 years after the introduction of the essential medicines concept throughout Africa there are simply not enough medicines on the pharmacy shelves. At any time, public health facilities in Africa have in stock only about half of a core set of essential medicines, those listed on the Essential Drugs List. Stock-outs are worst in rural areas and harm the poor. The Africa-wide campaign, Stop the Stock-outs: Access to Essential Medicines for All launched in February 2009 aims to reduce stock outs of medicines in public health facilities which inadvertently results in improved access to essential medicines in Africa. This regional campaign is being run in six African countries which are Malawi, Kenya.

In Zimbabwe, the campaign is being headed by the CWGH. Our Health Programme Officer has attended two crucial regional meetings, the African Civil Society Workshop on Access to Essential medicines which ran from the 4th to 6th of May 2009 in Afddis Ababa, Ethiopia and the African Civi Society Role and Response workshop (7-10 December 2009) in Lusaka, Zambia. The Addis Ababa workshop which followed the launch of the Africa-wide campaign, Stop the Stock-outs: Access to Essential Medicines for All, convened 30 civil society organizations and policy-makers to examine strategies for reducing stock-outs of medicines in public health facilities, and improving access to essential medicines in Africa.

The aim of the workshop was to develop a coordinated national, regional and continental advocacy action plan focused on improving access to medicines across the continent. A joint statement was developed, and representatives from Kenya and Madagascar were nominated to present the positions to the experts meeting, The Fourth Conference of African Ministers of Health Meeting (CAMH4) whose theme was “Universal Access to Essential Health Services: Improving Maternal and Child Rights”, which was running concurrently with the workshop. Civil Society Organisations that were on the programme were mobilized so that they could raise the issues being discussed at that the meeting. The workshop participants also had the opportunity to attend the experts meeting as observers to oversee the adoption of the positions.

The Lusaka meeting sought to share the different strategies for success used by the partners, country plans, challenges, opportunities for improvement and recommendations for advocacy. Zimbabwe shared its goals of minimizing diversion of essential medicines to the black market. Work around this has already begun with baseline surveys having been carried out in 5 urban and rural districts in Zimbabwe. Plans are underway to develop a mechanism of communicating with Rural District Health Centres. The Stop the Stock Outs Campaign continues to present opportunities for CWGH to engage with key stakeholders and to network at regional level. It also presents a vehicle for CWGH to implement the resolution reached at the National Health Conference 2008, with regards to access to essential medicines.