#ValueOurHealth calls on African Governments to improve citizens’ access to budget information and open up spaces for participation in the budget process. This is important because open and participatory budgets lead to more and better spending on women's and children's health.This week we held a webinar about the #ValueOurHealth campaign to give members an opportunity to share their successes and key pieces of advice.We also outlined the evidence-based advocacy resources available via the #ValueOurHealth campaign, and presented our transparency and participation scorecard based on the most recent data from the International Budget Partnership.Julius Mukunda, Coordinator of the Civil Society Budget Advocacy Group in Uganda, explained how the #ValueOurHealth campaign in Uganda successfully advocated for greater funds for health workers.Mathias Chatuluka and Tony Masamba from MamaYe in Malawi, explained how they used district transparency and accountability scorecards and their partnership with the media to bring attention to their campaign asks.Key lessons included:
- The importance of timing – to have an effect, budget advocacy must be aligned with budget processes – these timelines are the same every year so a successful campaign will prepare way in advance in order to target government or parliamentarians at the right time.
- Engaging citizens, not just CSOs, with a specific issue they care about, ideally in a non-partisan way – Julius explained: “when we explained the issue to motorcycle riders, they were so happy and interested in taking a photograph to advocate personally, using the special frames – they felt so proud they could send out this message”.
- Drawing international comparisons – Julius said “space for CSOs in Uganda is shrinking – but the government of Uganda is very interested in performing well at international level. So comparing it with other countries definitely drew attention to the campaign. The people in government were saying – no no no, we need to do better than what is currently being done. The OBI was showing that Uganda was one of the best in the Eastern Africa and also overall in Africa in transparency, so that was very important.”
- Working with parliamentarians – the Uganda campaign tabled a statement with the parliamentary health committee and the campaign asks became part of the parliamentary report. The head of the health committee was very passionate about health worker issues as he is a doctor himself, so having a champion on the inside was a big plus.
- Challenge of accessing data – this was a challenge noted by all, including access to rapidly changing budget information in the heat of parliamentary negotiations – having champions on the inside such as parliamentarians helps to access this data.
- Engaging the media – this was noted as a challenge in Uganda, which the Malawi team addressed by proposing an innovative approach: they have created journalist networks who are trained on technical issues in health. They are also planning future budget advocacy training. As a result they already have access to receptive journalists that can disseminate their message in a critical way.
- Engaging your network - CSBAG is made up of 75 organisations and individuals across the country – this was very useful as they used their members to send out campaign messages – for example, some of them called their MP to tell them about the campaign. Working with CSO partners outside your network is also key.
- Using innovative resources – the smartphone “selfie” placards and the country-specific pledge cards were especially useful, in addition to intensive campaigning on social media.
Ready to take action and launch the #ValueOurHealth campaign in your country? Find the latest resources here and view the pictures of the campaign on Twitter and Facebook.