Promoting Health Rights in Kenya Increasing Health Rights Awareness Among Communities and Health Workers 14 May, 2009 Nairobi, KENYA

Who is HERAF? HERAF is an NGO that brings together health professionals, NGOs, FBOs and PLWHA organizations to advocate for health as a fundamental human right in Kenya. Established in 2006, as a project of Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC), and registered as a non governmental organization in Kenya by the NGO coordination board in 2007

Specific Goals  To create awareness, inform and educate health professionals, civil society and communities on health as a fundamental human right.  To influence Kenya’s health policies to guarantee promotion, respect and protection of the right to health.  To provide leadership among health professionals, civil society and the local masses in identifying and addressing emerging health rights issues in Kenya.  To advocate for an efficient health financing system that ensures equity, accountability and sustainability of Kenya’s health care system.

Strategy One: health rights awareness  Providing accurate and up to date information on the right to health  Enabling health care workers and civil society to understand and acknowledge the right to health  HERAF addresses health rights awareness & participation at 2 levels: Community level: –Strengthen community participation in health sector governance Health worker level: –Providing health workers with a strategy to communicate challenges and champion rights

Providing Health Workers with a Strategy for Communicating Challenges and Championing Rights

Objective To provide health workers with a strategy for communicating challenges and championing rights Design Identify a key health facility Work with staff and management to document their daily experiences Conduct in-depth interviews with health workers

Design, cont’d After gathering information and testimonials, identify major challenges to realization of the right to health, and their manifestations at the health facility level. Results A “flash video,” created and owned by the health workers featured within Serves as a communication tool at many different levels: –Provider to patient –Provider to provider –Provider to management –Provider to policy maker

Results: The Continuing Medical Education (CME) committee at Mbagathi organized a viewing of the video with staff and management Prompted in-depth discussion of one of the major challenges depicted: stigma and discrimination amongst health workers

Conclusions: Advocacy and communication that is driven and owned by health workers themselves can have a significant impact at the facility level Effective communication and participation is needed to advance health rights at all levels.

Strategy two: Evidence-based advocacy for reforms in health policies  Raising public awareness of international standards, government obligations and national legislation that promotes the right to health in Kenya  Providing leadership among health workers and civil society in identifying and addressing the emerging policy gaps on the right to health in Kenya

Strategy 3:Promoting community participation in health sector management and governance  Empowering community representatives in HMB/T to represent community interests in the design and implementation of health sector programmes at the district and national level.  Improving participation of civil society organizations in district and national health forums

Strengthening Community Participation in Health Sector Governance

Objectives: Strengthen capacity of grassroots communities to hold government structures accountable for the implementation of a rights-based approach to health care programmes at the district and community level To empower DHMB/T to represent community interest in the implementation of health sector programmes at the district level To improve health service delivery by empowering communities to monitor the quality of health services provided and to demand for quality services To advocate for transparency and accountability in planning, budgetary allocation and management of resources allocated to the community-based health facilities in order to address prevailing disease conditions

Target groups: Health Facility Committees District Health Management Teams/Boards MOH staff working at health facilities Civil society and general public Women, youth, children

Design Activities geared towards creating demand for health rights and quality health services. E.g. –Inform communities on the right to health –Educate on Ministerial Service Charter –Clarify the role of DHMT,DHMB, Health Facility committees. –etc

Design, cont’d Activities creating a supply of human rights awareness and good governance & management of health systems. E.g. –Capacity building for DHMT/B and HFC to develop and implement district health plans and also mobilise more resources for respective facilities –Educate on the link between health sector budgeting and MTEF –Information and education on the right to health

Anticipated results: Supply is generated through capacity building of health management teams and creating effective and efficient structures Both demand and supply inputs yield overall of the intervention: strengthened community participation in health sector governance in Kenya.

Strategy 4: Promoting an efficient health care financing system  Advancing budget literacy among health care providers and civil society organizations in Kenya  Advocating for transparency and accountability in planning, allocation and management of resources allocated to the health sector

Conclusion Policy and programme development must be driven by those at the grassroots, including health workers and community members for the right to health to be achieved.