Published on 27/02/2023

3CAP Health: ENDA Santé strengthens 150 civil society actors on good health governance and leadership

After the training of trainers on health governance and leadership held in Pikine, cascading training sessions were held in the 5 implementation zones of the Framework for Consultation, Coordination and Advocacy Actions of civil society for Health in Senegal, initiated by civil society and supported by USAID through the NPI EXPAND project.

ENDA Santé offered capacity building to health actors from civil society and grassroots community organizations by relying on the Association des Femmes Médecins du Sénégal (AFEMS), a sub-recipient of the Governance Pool, to implement training activities on health governance and leadership in Pikine, Guédiawaye, Thiès, Saint-Louis, Kaolack and Ziguinchor.

The State of Senegal has expressed its willingness to involve communities in improving the health of the population by creating a favorable framework at the level of health structures (post and health center) for Health Development Committees (HDCs) whose members come from civil society and the community to help solve health problems in collaboration with the local authorities. But constraints make their effective participation difficult. "The actors do not master the texts and have not appropriated them. Also, they do not have the necessary tools to exercise their role within these bodies," describes Ousmane Sow, a member of the Guédiawaye health district's CDS network. 

To address these constraints and increase the effective participation of CSOs/CBOs in the development of health policies and programs, the Governance Pool, through 3CAP Health, provides training workshops to help actors acquire skills in health governance and leadership in order to encourage them and the population to participate in the health effort.

9 sessions on governance and leadership

The training includes 9 sessions: clarification of concepts related to governance, identification of governance bodies according to the scale of the health pyramid, national, regional and community, modalities of implementation, a large module on the intervention of civil society for the improvement of health governance: how civil society actors could intervene more in governance.

In this regard, 4 important principles that underpin good governance were identified, namely transparency, accountability, participation and efficiency , which were discussed at length by the participants. Sessions, no less important, on the identification of good practices in the different areas of intervention of the entities that make up 3CAP Santé and on the challenges that prevent the participation of health actors in governance bodies to move towards the resolution of health problems at the local level, were also held.

The goal of the training is to contribute to the improvement of health action governance at the level of all civil society organizations (NGOs and CBOs) and governance structures.

Knowledge of transparency, accountability, participation and effectiveness in addressing health issues is acquired

I have participated in several trainings but this is my first training on governance. The terms transparency, accountability, efficiency and participation now make sense to me. We now have tools that will allow us to better play our role in local health governance bodies.

Cheikh Dieng, President of the National Association for Prevention and Development based in Guédiawaye (ANPD)

Thanks to this initiative, 21 civil society actors are strengthened in Guédiawaye. They will be a total of 150 actors in the 5 intervention zones of the Governance Pool. The beneficiaries of the training were very enthusiastic and welcomed this initiative. They all promised to organize the restitution of the new knowledge acquired in their respective organizations, once they return home.

Beyond the knowledge acquired, the health actors magnified this opportunity which allowed them to meet other associations.

We are used to working on our own. ENDA Santé through 3CAP Santé has succeeded in bringing us together and our next step will be to form a network in order to better federate our strengths and our interventions. This will allow us to weigh on the scales and to be a credible interlocutor with the authorities to better address health issues in our area.

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