Southern African Workshop on Public Participation in Health Systems
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17-19 May, 2000
Zimbabwe
The meeting will be held under the Public Participation and Governance
Programme of the Southern African Network on Equity in Health (EQUINET)
(see http://www.equinet.org.zw for further information). This part of
the EQUINET programme is co-ordinated at Training and Research Support
Centre, Zimbabwe and the meeting is one of a series of EQUINET activi-
ties in 2000.
OBJECTIVES AND THEME AREAS:
The meeting aims to exchange information between active programmes, re-
view current experience and draw generalisable conclusions or identify
key areas for further work along a number of themes relevant to par-
ticipation, through presentation and review of experiences and analysis
of local, national/regional experience of participation in:
1. Identification of health needs and problems, participatory evidence
based approaches to planning and priority setting;
2. Implementing promotive, preventive and curative health interventions
and health plans, particularly at primary health care level;
3. Planning, implementing and monitoring resource mobilisation and re-
source allocation within health systems;
4. Monitoring and improving quality of care.
We have to date received replies that indicate that we will have inputs
on all the above themes.
The meeting aims to enhance local work through information exchange,
strengthen networking on this area and draw conclusions that can be
brought as appropriate to national policy fora, to the SADC Health Sec-
tor and other policy fora. It further aims to identify areas for fur-
ther research or action that can be followed up through EQUINET or
other collaborative frameworks. The output from the meeting will also
be taken forward to the EQUINET Southern African Regional Meeting on
Building Alliances for Equity in Health to be held in September 13-15
2000.
INVITATION TO DELEGATES:
We would at this stage like to invite those who have expressed interest
and any others responding to this call to submit to the organisers the
theme area (one or more) they would wish to present on at the meeting,
and a brief five line outline of the programme/issues they seek to
present/review.
PRESENTATIONS:
MORE DETAILED INFORMATION ON PRESENTATIONS WILL BE PROVIDED. It is pro-
posed that presentations in general will include DESCRIPTION OF the
context (in terms of health system and other relevant conditions) of
the work the main elements of the work the participating groups and
mechanisms for participation (including roles, powers and responsibili-
ties) AND ANALYSIS OF the issues arising/carried forward and lessons
learned from the work. For delegates with work that has not yet ad-
vanced, the analysis may reflect the issues they seek to address or
that have arisen so far.
PARTICIPANTS:
Given the nature of the meeting theme, we would like to bring together
a diversity of groups, but in a manner that enables the participation
of all. Such work often involves health professionals/workers, local/
central government elected leaders and administrators, civil society
groups, religious groups, traditional leaders, researchers and others.
For effective and equitable exchange between groups with often very
different emphases or approaches, we would seek to draw such groups
through national/ local processes where participation is strengthened,
and where issues have begun to be raised and addressed in common plat-
forms, and where some 'common language' on health issues has developed.
We therefore invite those submitting areas for presentation/review to
identify and inform us if possible of workshop delegates from groups
outside the health sector (as above) that have been involved in their
work who may attend the meeting.
We would encourage a delegate team of at least two if possible with one
being a representative of the elected, civil, religious, traditional or
other social groups involved in the local work.
SPONSORSHIP AND OTHER:
EQUINET will, as noted in the first announcement, sponsor a limited
number of delegates through funds already held. We are happy that some
organisations may be able to sponsor their own delegates, and we will
endeavour to ensure that all interested delegates are able to attend.
We are finalising venue arrangements and will provide further detail on
costs per day. Sponsorship may be provided in full (airfares and lo-
cal costs), for local costs only (board and conference), or for confer-
ence costs only.
PLEASE NOTE IN YOUR RESPONSE FOR EACH DELEGATES SUBMITTED WHETHER THEY
ARE SELF-SPONSORED OR REQUIRE SPONSORSHIP and WHAT SPONSORSHIP IS
REQUESTED.
The meeting will be held taking note of and with the aim of supporting
collaboration with other national, regional and international initia-
tives towards enhancing public participation in the health sector. In-
ternational initiatives include those initiated by World Health Organi-
sation, IDS (Sussex), African Development Bank, GTZ and others.
We will at the end of January give feedback on the more specific areas
to be covered, the proposed workshop format for your comment. Knowing
the experience of those responding so far, we would be happy for any
feedback, comment or advice you would like to give to ensure that the
meeting yields best value to all participating. We are also happy to
respond to any logistic or programme queries you may have before then -
please direct these to:
Dr R Loewenson
Director, TARSC
Fax: +263-4-737-220
mailto:rloewenson@healthnet.zw
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