Don’t Miss Out – 2 August 2023, Webinar: “How we can Ensure Public Health resilience for the next Pandemic?”

Dear colleagues

The Community Working Group on Health (CWGH) and the Africa Health Budget Network (AHBN) cordially invite you to Webinar on “How we can Ensure Public Health Resilience for the Next Pandemic?”

Date: August 2, 2023

Time: 10 AM (CAT) Harare, Pretoria

8AM (WAT) Lagos/Abuja

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/7784897148
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/7784897148
 
Dear colleagues
 
The Community Working Group on Health (CWGH) and the Africa Health Budget Network (AHBN) cordially invite you to Webinar on “How we can Ensure Public Health Resilience for the Next Pandemic?”
Date: August 2, 2023
Time: 10 AM (CAT) Harare, Pretoria
8AM (WAT) Lagos/Abuja
 
Join Zoom Meeting
 
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/7784897148
 
 
 

Community Working Group on Health: Bringing Civil Society into Health Financing

Background

In 2001, African Union heads of state committed to allocating 15% of their annual budgets to health sector financing through the Abuja Declaration. However, in 2022, Zimbabwe’s health budget was only 10.6% of total spending. Inadequate public financing for health means Zimbabweans are largely forced to pay out-of-pocket if and when they have the personal funds to do so in order to access health care. The country’s health sector is also extremely fragile given its reliance on foreign aid and shifting donor priorities, which the World Bank reports accounted for nearly 56% of health expenditures in 2020. No country has made significant progress toward universal health coverage without relying on public funds to support the dominant share of health sector costs. Given these financing gaps, many Zimbabweans lack access to basic primary health care services like reproductive, maternal and antenatal care; contraception; and newborn and child nutrition (nearly one in four children under five experience stunting).  

Bringing Civil Society into Health Financing

 

For decades, the Harare-based Community Working Group on Health (CWGH) a network of Zimbabwean civil society and community-based organizations has been working to change this paradigm and improve government accountability by expanding community participation in public health policies, and participating in the development and monitoring of health budgets. In its role as the host and coordinator of the World Bank’s Global Financing Facility (GFF) Civil Society Organization (CSO) platform in Zimbabwe, CWGH has worked to ensure that CSOs and youth-led organizations (YLOs) are at the table with government to shape and inform the development and implementation of Zimbabwe’s investment case to mobilize domestic resources for sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health and nutrition (SRMNCAHN).  

Zimbabwe’s GFF Steering Committee with partners from PAI and the World Bank.

Impact of the Work

Since 2021, the GFF has provided CWGH with grants to support its advocacy work, including developing Zimbabwe’s GFF 2022-2025 CSO Strategy, which is comprised of a shared work plan and a monitoring and evaluation framework that facilitates member collaboration, evidence-based advocacy and alignment of advocacy efforts.  

In 2022, CWGH gathered community and civil society inputs to develop a domestic health financing position paper that was submitted to Parliament, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Health and Child Care and advocated for increased health spending in the national budget. Traditionally, the national health budget has been formulated by technocrats at the ministerial level without direct input from the community. Participation at the community level in budget formulation gives greater depth to the discussion and facilitates achieving the country’s overall health goals. Thanks to the community participation enabled through CWGH’s position paper, Zimbabwe’s government increased spending on health and child care from 10.6% of total public expenditure in 2022 to 11.2% in 2023.  

CWGH’s 2022 Universal Health Coverage Day commemorations in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.

The GFF CSO platform has also enabled civil society to provide input into Zimbabwe’s 2021-2025 National Health Strategy (NHS), which identifies 11 health priorities, including SRMNCAH-N and health financing reforms that rely more on public financing and the creation of a national health insurance scheme. To pay for the implementation of the NHS, CWGH also facilitated civil society engagement in developing the investment case for the National Health Strategy (2021-2025). These strategies are essential for domestic resource mobilization and transitioning Zimbabwe’s health system from one dependent on external financing to a self-sustaining and equitable system.  

In 2023, CWGH received a new GFF grant to continue its advocacy work on domestic resource mobilization for SRMNCAH-N services and maintain civil society’s role in monitoring the implementation of the NHS and investment case. 

Zimbabwe wins top post at Africa Union Summit

Zimbabwe wins top post at the Africa Union Summit:

                                                         

Parliamentarians from various African countries gathered to discuss health financing in Africa. The meeting, held on 11th and 12th July 2023 in Nairobi,At the sidelines of the African Union Summit resulted in the creation of the Parliamentarian Task Force on Domestic Resource Mobilization for Health in Africa. The task force aims to engage parliamentarians in their respective countries to mobilize national resources for health, strengthen community health, achieve universal health coverage, and address funding gaps for HIV, Tuberculosis, and Malaria.

Zimbabwe was represented at the meeting by Hon MP Dr Mathew Nyashanu, Hon MP Dr Ruth Labode, Hon MP Daniel Molokele, and Mr Itai Rusike. Hon MP Daniel Molokele from Zimbabwe was elected as the Co-Chairperson of the Parliamentarians Task Force on Domestic Resource Mobilization for Health in Africa, alongside Senegal.

The donor community is advocating for sustainability and wants countries to prioritize health as a national development goal. They aim to drive political will and encourage governments to allocate a larger share of their budgets to the health sector while decreasing reliance on external aid. This shift towards a sustainable and self-reliant health financing model is spearheaded by GFAN Africa, which prioritizes the long-term development and resilience of countries’ health delivery systems. This initiative will help countries respond better to future health emergencies like COVID-19.