Improving the SRHR Policy Landscape
to private-forprofit entities including the drug-shops. This would affect the pilot; therefore, through our advocacy efforts, the MoH committed to support drug-shop operators under the running pilot to access public commodities through the Alternative Distribution Strategy. This meant continuous access of commodities by the drug shop operators.
For years, RHU has been a key stakeholder in Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights programming in Uganda. Therefore, working with partners, RHU engaged in policy advocacy at different levels – international, national and subnational. We continued to register success in our advocacy efforts at both national and subnational levels as seen below; How we advocate Our advocacy is through several tested approaches including: ♦ Evidence generation; ♦ Dissemination, popularisation and support implementation of SRHR policies; ♦ The AFP SMART advocacy that targets key decision makers for policy change; ♦ Media engagements and media advocacy; ♦ Policy analysis and budget tracking; and ♦ Social accountability- an approach of empowering communities to hold duty bearers accountability for the fulfilment and protection of their SRH rights.
1. The Uganda cabinet approved the National Health Insurance (NHI) Bill that includes SRH services In May 2019, the NHI bill that covers reproductive health services was approved by the Ugandan cabinet, after a draft being in place for more than 15 years. Working with partners, RHU played a
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Reproductive Health Uganda Annual Report 2019
significant advocacy role including supporting drafting the private members’ bill with our major interest on prioritising FP/SRH which fast tracked the approval process. It’s now before the Parliament of Uganda for passing.
RHU ED making a presentation on RHU advocacy efforts during the 2019 Annual General Meeting.
2. Ministry of Health (MoH) approves drug-shop operators to access family planning commodities from the Alternative Distribution Strategy
11,359 Clients that received FP services from drug shop operators between April 2018 and Dec 2019
In 2018, working with FHI360, RHU achieved an advocacy win where the National Drug Authority (NDA) approved a pilot for drug shop operators to offer injectable contraceptives. There are more than 10,000 drug shops in Uganda with the potential to reach populations with high unmet need for family planning, including rural women who cannot easily access health centers. However, over the reporting period MoH had suspended access of public commodities
3. The Government of Uganda takes on key CSO recommendations in the country ICPD25 commitments In the CSO ICPD25 position paper, among others the Government committed to: operationalise the sexuality education framework, reduce unmet need for family planning to 10% by 2022 and walk for gender equality. These commitments were made by the President of Uganda at the ICPD+25 conference in Nairobi Kenya, in November 2019. To achieve this, RHU played a significant role through; mobilising other CSO to develop the position paper, facilitated the CSO national pre-ICPD25 symposium, printed the CSO national preICPD25 position paper which was handed over to Government for consideration.
leaderships on the benefits of prioritising reproductive health and family planning and facilitated the district advocacy working groups to follow up on the commitments by the leaders.
5. Districts implement the Uganda National Redistribution Strategy for Prevention of Expiry and Handling of Expired Medicines and Health Supplies Four targeted districts were effectively implementing the Uganda National Redistribution Strategy for Prevention of Expiry and Handling of Expired Medicines and Health Supplies to curb commodity overstock and under stocks especially within the same localities or in proximity. This was as a result of RHU’s engagements in these districts where their respective leaderships were supported to develop steps to improve the functionality of the redistribution strategy. This has since seen prevention of stock outs of especially family planning commodities in some facilities yet there were reported overstocks in others which has ultimately increased access to FP services.
4. Ten (10) districts allocate domestic funds for reproductive health and family planning In 2019, ten RHU target districts allocated domestic funds for reproductive health and family planning for FY19/20 amounting to more than UGX 794 million. This was achieved after engagements with district
District-based stakeholders undergoing advocacy capacity strengthening.
Reproductive Health Uganda Annual Report 2019
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