Involve civil society, NGOs in developing health plans

The civil society, members of the parliament and the private sector engaged in healthcare services can play a key role in the process of policy formulation, they said.

The voices of the civil society, private sector and the stakeholders are often ignored, the speakers observed, saying that access to quality healthcare services and accountability can only be ensured if there is an effective mechanism of dialogue before endorsing any major health programme.

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The Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) and Columbia University of the USA organised the dialogue on 'Citizen's Voice in Health policy and programme: Setting agendas and establishing accountability' in the city, with CPD Chairman Prof Rehman Sobhan in the chair.

Government officials and representatives of NGOs, development partners and the World Bank took part in the dialogue.

Referring to the Sector Investment Plan of the Health, Nutrition and Population Sector Programme (HNPSP), a policy document of the government, the speakers noted that it was designed with extensive participation of the community and stakeholders but their role in the formulation of five-year health programme (HPSP) was not a priority.

The policy document identifies the key investments required to accelerate the modernisation of the health sector so that it becomes more responsive to clients' needs, more efficient in the delivery of services and more effective in providing key services for poor people.

Professor Rounaq Jahan of Columbia University presented the keynote paper highlighting the key issues of the health programme.

"The health ministry and the development partners are now negotiating funding for the HNPSP and the strategic investment plan (SIP), but information is limited to a few NGOs and civil society organisations," she said.

Prof Jahan pointed out that the parliamentary committees are not functioning properly as an accountability mechanism. There is no effective national level forum for non-government sector for sustained advocacy and engagement with the development partners and the government, she added.

She also identified three major areas for discussion: past experiences of the citizen's voice, citizen's voice in HNPSP and SIP and enhancing effectiveness of citizen's voice.

She said that SIP identifies citizen's voice in a few strategic areas like decentralisation and there are opportunities for voices in additional areas.

Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya, executive director of CPD, Dr Zafrullah Chowdhury, coordinator of Gonoshasthya Kendra, Prof Mahmudur Rahman, coordinator of Dhaka Community Hospital Trust, Samson H Choudhury, Chairman of Square Group, Dr Neil Squires, chief of health and nutrition programme, DFID, and Enamul Karim, technical director of HLSP, also spoke.