PREAMBLE:
Civil Society Legislative Advocacy
Centre (CISLAC) with support from Partnership for Advocacy in Child and Family
Health (PACFaH) organized a 2-day training for CSOs on legislative advocacy in
child and family health. The training aims at bringing selected and reputable civil
society organisations across focal states—Kano, Kaduna, Oyo, Bauchi, FCT,
Nasarawa, Niger and Lagos states under one roof for training on appropriate
skills and knowledge to effectively demand accountability in child and family
health (Nutrition, Routine Immunisation, Family Planning and Childhood killer
diseases) from the legislatures. The meeting drew about 30 participants from
various organisations. It featured Mallam Y.Z Ya’u, Mrs. M.O Shobowale, Barr.
Onyekachi Asogwa, Dr. Francis Ohanyido and other PACFaH issue leads. After
exhaustive deliberations on various thematic issues, the following observations
and recommendations were made:
Observations:
1. While legislative advocacy
is a deliberate process with demonstrated evidence to indirectly influence the
legislators to support or pass a specific legislation, lobbying aims at
directly influencing the legislators to support or pass a specific legislation.
2. As the United States donor
agencies under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 are
totally disallowed from lobby activities, all grantees of the agencies must
uphold and strictly adhere to the lobby-free provisions in their related
programmes and activities.
3. The primary
responsibilities of the legislators include lawmaking, oversight function,
representation, constituency outreach, financial control, confirmation of
appointment, and constitutional amendment.
4. Related child and family
health issues demanding legislative advocacy are adequate budgetary allocation,
procurement and skillful administration of life-saving commodities, creation of
budget line items, timely release and judicious utilization of fund, upgrading
and functional health care facilities at all levels.
5. Proposal writing is
neither fund raising but an opportunity to sell the organization to a potential
funder, primarily for expansion of friendship.
6. In proposal monitoring
plan, critical consideration should be accorded impacts, effects, outputs,
activities, inputs, casual hypothesis and problem assessment to ensure focused,
concise, compelling, comprehensive and creative project implementation.
7. Project strategy design
involves developing befitted SWOT analysis—Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities
and Threats; and Organisation Capacity Assessment Tool would help to appreciate
SWOT and embrace proactive strategy to mitigate the organisation’s Weakness and
Threats.
8. While qualities of a good
indicator are practical, independent, measurable and targeted, indicator is
measured by output, effective or impact of a project.
9. A well written budget
narrative should be clear, accurate, consistent, complete with appropriate
level of to prevent rewrite and minimize errors.
Recommendations:
1. Building formidable civil
society with harmonized, interpreted and standardized data to inform effective
legislative advocacy in child and family health.
2. Developing context
specific messaging and advocacy briefs on family planning, treatment of
childhood killer diseases (pneumonia and diarrhea), nutrition, and routine
immunisation for appropriate and effective legislative advocacy in child and
family health.
3. Engaging lobby-free
legislative advocacy in child and family health through appropriate consultation
of well-informed and experienced Legal Adviser to interpret, decode and
distinguish advocacy from lobby activities.
4. Understanding relevant
lobby-free provisions of the United State Law to ensure appropriate compliance.
5. Well-informed civil
society on the constitutional mandate of the legislators within the context of
exclusive, concurrent and residual lists to understand and effectively demand
accountability on legislative roles and responsibilities on child and family
health at all levels.
6. Understanding existing legislation
and strategic policy documents like the National Health Act 2014, National
Strategic Plan of Action on Nutrition (NSPAN), National Blue Print on Family Planning,
National Immunisation Policy, counterpart commitment/tripartite agreement on
routine immunization, and recommended guidelines (such as Amoxicillin
Dispersible Tablets and Zinc/Lo-ORS) as first line treatment of pneumonia and diarrhea
respectively by the United Nations Commission on Life-Saving Commodities
(UNCoLSC) to inform evidence-based advocacy in child and family health.
7. Building constructive
working relationship with legislative aides and staff to ease accessibility to
the legislatures for advocacy in child and family health.
8. Adopting high level
objectivity and professionalism, extensive research, strategic planning,
innovation, intellectuality in proposal writing to inform comprehensive and
acceptable proposal.
9. Understanding the proposal
maxims—organisation, funder and domain—prior experience, developing holistic
organisational structure, organisation’s weaknesses to build defence against
anticipated questions from project funders.
10. Sustainable operation
through enhanced organisation’s capacity, good knowledge management, appropriate
operational research and consultation, information and experience sharing,
timely decision making.
Conclusion
The participants expressed
appreciations to CISLAC/PACFaH for embarking on the training channeled towards building
their capacity on legislative advocacy in child and family health. Participants
expressed gratitude to the organizers, noting that the engagement was revealing
and indeed an opportunity to begin to engage the legislatures at all levels.
They demonstrated willingness to continue demanding accountability on Nutrition,
Routine Immunisation, Family Planning, and treatment of childhood killer
diseases in their respective states.
Signed:
Abanka J. Musa
RENITO, Abuja
Mary Jalingo
Cmmunity Aid Initiative, Niger state
Chief (Mrs.) Grace
Oluwatoye
Life Builder Foundation, Ibadan
Pharm. David E.O Akpotor
Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria, Abuja
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