African MPs Deliberate on Health Equity Challenges
Members of Parliament (MPs) from East and Southern Africa met in Uganda again on September 21, 2009 to follow up on the meeting they held last year to deliberate on health equity challenges in the sub-region. This meeting was organized by the Southern and East African Parliamentary Alliance of Committees on Health (SEAPACoH) in partnership with African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC), Partners in Population and Development-Africa Regional Office (PPD-ARO), and EQUINET.
Speaking at the meeting, Hon. Blessing Chebundo, the chairman of SEAPACoH, reminded MPs that they have an oversight role to ensure that resources allocated by their governments to respond to urgent health issues in the region are actually spend on these issues. Said he “the executive arm of government sets the tone for policies, but parliament has the mandate to ensure that oversight is maintained and that the government fulfils its promise to people.” He emphasized the fact that morbidity and mortality remain unacceptably high in the sub-region, and MPs have a role to play in responding to these challenges.
Representing APHRC at the meeting, Dr. Eliya Zulu (the Center’s Director of Research) made two presentations in which he implored MPs to not only use research in their work, but also advocate for increased funding for research in their respective countries. He further highlighted the urgent population and reproductive health issues in the sub-region and called upon MPs to energize their efforts in responding to these challenges. These issues included: high fertility, many mistimed births, low use of contraception especially among the majority poor, and high child and maternal deaths, among others. He finished by posing these questions “What is the responsibility of MPs in ensuring that their constituents live quality life as much they give them numbers in terms of votes? Should MPs just let their constituents have many children who will languish in poverty?”
The meeting was presided over by Uganda’s Minister of Health, Hon. Stephen Mallinga, who acknowledged the fact that the main issue in Africa is the lack of political will and commitment to address health equity problems. He called on MPs to use the meeting to renew and remind themselves of the commitments their countries have made, and the fact that it is their responsibility to remind their governments about these commitments. “I urge you to bring to the limelight the issue of leadership, commitment and support to address health equity issues in our countries,” he said. “We need to see leaders in our counties pledge their commitment to addressing health equity issues. Parliaments can bring real difference in the policy arena of addressing sexual and reproductive health issues in their countries,” he added.
MPs at the meeting committed to, among others, influence resource allocation for health in their countries, hold their governments to account for commitments made to ensure funds from donors and elsewhere are spent well, and remove legislations that undermine health, especially sexual and reproductive health. APHRC supported three MPs and two parliamentary clerks to participate in the meeting.
Tags: Health; uganda; EQUINET;
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