We are the Commonwealth's agency for civil society. We support people's participation in democracy and development

Overall objectives

The objectives of the three-day learning exchange are:

1) Share knowledge and expertise between health rights projects and partners from at least eight Commonwealth countries

2) Identify good practices in people’s participation in governance in the health sector covering the following areas:

• Challenges, strategies and approaches that have worked in holding governments to account on health policy commitments and delivering equity in health service delivery
• Engagement in a range of policy and legislation processes in the health sector
• Capacity development approaches and methodologies that have worked
• Approaches in integrating gender and its intersectionality in health projects
• Monitoring and evaluation methodologies and tools that have worked

3) Document good practices in strengthening civic voices to engage in governance in the health sector from the content of the exchange

Target outputs:

• Preparation of a short paper on good practices in strengthening civic voices to engage in governance in the health sector
• Identify other potential knowledge and communication materials
• Identify mechanism(s) to promote continued exchanges among partners, potentially using the Foundation’s knowledge hub

Key issues to be addressed

• Intersecting inequalities in health service delivery and governance
• Current challenges in health policy – outdated legislation; inter-sectoral policy considerations, universal health coverage
• Challenges of linking civic-voice accountability mechanisms and governance institutions
• How do global processes and agreements influence national policy and local implementation?
• Different civic-voice accountability mechanisms and conditions for their effectiveness – case studies from projects/partner experience
• Public awareness and communications to shape public discourse and opinion in support of tackling stigma and more accountable and inclusive health services.