By Mary Jalingo
The White Ribbon Alliance Nigeria (WRAN) has called on the need for citizens’ engagement in policy making and service delivery, to encourage trust and community buy-in in the health sector.
WRAN National Coordinator, Mr. Tonte Ibraye, stated this during a community dialogue session with members of Chanchaga Local Government Area of Niger State which held recently.
Mr. Ibraye said Niger like some other states in Nigeria has one of the highest ratio of maternal and infant mortality rate, adding that the intervention of WRAN which is aimed at empowering citizens to advocate for reforms in Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn and Child Health ( RMNCH) policy making through community consultations.
He said the Global secretariat of the alliance for Safe Motherhood, has plan on implementing a three year campaign to improve citizen engagement in RMNCH policy making and service delivery in the state.
The national Coordinator said the project would focus on the objectives of making sure that by the end of 2016, 2017 and 2018 respectively, 500,000 citizens of the state are demanding for their rights to be involved in decision that concern their health.
“Government would implement accountability processes at all levels of RMNCH and the accountability process would be such that listen and respond to citizen’s views about MNCH,” he said.
He added that the intervention was necessary to increase awareness and engage citizens as research has shown that, 48 per cent of birth in the state are still being delivered by relatives and traditional birth attendant who are not skilled to handled complications associated with pregnancy and child birth.
He called on the state government to see the process of accountability mechanism as a way of given citizens the opportunity to contribute to the development of their community by taking ownership which he noted was the best form of good governance.
Also speaking, a member of the community and a Traditional Birth Attendant, Hajiya Binta Abdullahi, said she was worried about the way government go about making policies without the involvement of relevant stakeholders, adding that when issues of public interest were politicalized, the outcome usually don’t make impact.
Hajiya Binta Abdullahi said the high rate of maternal and child mortality would continue to increase, unless government take action to provide quality and affordable healthcare services especially for the rural women who have no access to healthcare facilities.
She noted that the involvement of relevant stakeholders in decision making would help the government to prioritize and improve on service delivery.
