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level of education. Furthermore, disability and diversity awareness programmes need to be recognised as critical components of social cohesion and methods to reduce the vulnerability of children with disabilities to abuse and neglect. The Programme was pleased to build and grow the field in so far as this work is concerned and will continue to support models aimed at upscaling positive lessons emerging from it across the region.
Health Rights
The Health Rights Programme took two projects to the June Board. If the Board endorsed all projects, the Programme would attain a grant spend of 85% on its core budget for 2018. In this quarter, we shared progress on the growth of the Citizens Health Watch (CHW) and the project progress.
CHW has made positive strides in improving maternal health service delivery in key target peri-urban areas. According to a CHW client satisfaction survey, there has been a positive change in health worker attitudes towards women in need of maternal health services, which has led to higher client satisfaction. If this is maintained, we will likely see more women accessing maternal health services and, by extension, a reduction in maternal mortality in Zimbabwe. In addition, CHW noted improvements in maternal health policy implementation, especially the user fee policy. As a result of advocacy on effective maternal health policy implementation, up to 70% of the country’s health facilities (visited during a nationwide joint Ministry of Health and CHW joint monitoring exercise) had completely abolished user fees. Pregnant women and new mothers interviewed during the monitoring visit indicated they were no longer requested to pay for maternity services, and there were no women detained for not paying the required user fees as in the past.
CHW has also become a reputable organisation in the field of maternal health service delivery monitoring. This is evident through the recognition it is getting from both the ministry of health and other actors in the field. For instance, the Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals, one of the largest referral hospitals in Zimbabwe, contracted CHW to undertake a client satisfaction survey as an independent assessor for two weeks at casualty and out-patients
departments. The recommendations by CHW concerning health worker attitudes and the need for a rights-based approach in delivering patient services have been actioned towards the improvement of service delivery at the hospital. Parirenyatwa has recommended that CHW returns to monitor the institution in December 2018 to monitor progress on implementation of suggested changes.
Other funders have also recognised CHW; for instance, CordAid requested CHW to present its client satisfaction strategies and findings to support CordAids’ programming. CHW is also one of the few organisations selected by Amnesty International to come up with a sexual and reproductive health rights campaign draft. When the draft is finalised, CHW will be one of the implementing organisations for two years.
Economic and Social Justice Cluster (ESJ) – key highlights for Quarter 3
Health Rights Programme
The Health Rights Programme took four projects to the October Board. The regional programme’s contribution to these projects was $20 000. If the projects were approved, the health budgets for both Angola and the DRC would be depleted whilst the regional health budget would be at 85%, the remaining 15% would be exhausted by the end of the year as there were a number of ED and Board Chairperson projects in the pipeline.
The Palliative Care Portfolio supported through the African Palliative Centre was submitted to the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) 2018 World Cancer Congress under the collaborative initiatives case studies submissions. It was accepted as one of the initiatives presented in the Africa Regional Meeting at the World Cancer Congress in early October. The submission also made it to the top three initiatives to be considered for the UICC Collaboration Award as detailed on this link: https:// www.uicc.org/who-we-work/members/uicc-awards/uicc- awards-2018-finalists. The learning from this project will be made available for UICC members worldwide as a tool for membership engagement and capacity building. This
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