6 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 met from 6 to 8 May 2014 in Dakar to build their capacities budget analysis  advocacy for resources to improve 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 session, 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 (HHA), builds on the August 2013 Nairobi workshop organized on the same theme for Anglophone African countries (including Kenya, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Uganda). The workshop focused on the Partnership’s 3 pillars of health policy, health financing, and aid effectiveness      which are:

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