As detailed on our dedicated UN HLM on UHC Country Advocacy Meetings page, IFRC, UNAIDS, and partners are organizing a number of United Nations High-Level Meeting on Universal Health Coverage (UN HLM on UHC) country advocacy meetings. The objective is to provide civil society with a national level platform to advocate for an effective high-level meeting. The meetings will ideally bring together citizens, communities, civil society, governments, and multilateral stakeholders to advocate for specific government actions at the HLM and beyond to achieve UHC.
Past and Upcoming Meetings
The first two meetings have taken place in Panama and Georgia. Meetings are planned, but not yet confirmed, in Afghanistan, Brazil, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Pakistan, Philippines, and South Africa — we will provide updates as they become available*. If you would like to partner with IFRC on organizing a country advocacy meeting in one of these countries, please email us at csem@msh.org.
Support for Meetings
We encourage our members and other organizations to organize country advocacy meetings in their countries. To support those interested in organizing meetings, we have developed and disseminated the Guidance for Country-Level Advocacy Meetings for the UN HLM on UHC document and the National Universal Health Coverage Questionnaire template. In collaboration with Save the Children UK, we collated UHC data on over 200 countries to help inform HLM advocacy, UHC gaps as well as policymaking to fill those gaps. These data are available in the National Universal Health Coverage Questionnaires for each respective country. We also provide virtual training for the meeting facilitators on how to use the toolkit — please email us at csem@msh.org to schedule a training. To identify other CSEM members in your country who could participate in or help organize a country advocacy meeting, please visit our interactive member page on the CSEM website.
Promoting Meetings and Sharing Outcomes
We encourage those organizing country advocacy meetings to share information on their planned meetings with the CSEM listserv, and other networks, to promote participation in the event. The CSEM will also support the online promotion, as well as reporting after the event. To be featured in the newsletter and on our website, send the meeting report and images to csem@msh.org.
Post-HLM Engagement
Although engagement with governments in the buildup to the high-level meeting is very important, continued civil society engagement following the HLM will also be important. Civil society will have a key role to play in ensuring that commitments made at the HLM are implemented at the country level, and in helping raise awareness among citizens and local policymakers of the commitment that their government has made to enable them to engage in accountability processes. The CSEM aims to be a platform for continued sharing of country experiences with that advocacy post-HLM, for shared learning and support. As always, we encourage you to share your strategies and stories with us for dissemination through the listserv, newsletter, website and social media. If you have additional questions, please reach out to us at csem@msh.org.
*Country advocacy meetings scheduled for June and July:
Argentina, June 14, 2019
Organized by: HCV Foundation Without Borders, Todos Frente al Chagas / Chagas Disease Alliance (for the non-Hispanic community) and Health for All Argentina, in Coalition with Argentine agencies of UNAIDS, PAHO / WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA, IFRC and Cruz Roja Argentina.
For more information contact:
Maria TALLARICO
IFRC Regional Health Coordinator
Maria.TALLARICO@ifrc.org
Kazakhstan, June 14, 2019
Organized by: IFRC and country partners.
For more information contact:
Bayarmaa Luntan, IFRC representative in Almaty
bayarmaa.luntan@ifrc.org
Davron Mukhamadiev
Regional Coordinator for Europe region including Central Asia
davron.mukhamadiev@ifrc.org
Ghana, July 2, 2019
Organized by: IFRC and UNAIDS in collaboration with Alliance for Reproductive Health Rights (ARHR), SEND, Hope for Future Generations, WAAF among others.
For more information contact: Doris Ampong
d.ampong@arhr.org.gh
Kenya, July 4, 2019
Organized by: IFRC, UNAIDS and CSEM supported by a Planning Committee, which includes HENNET, KELIN, KANCO, KP Consortium, AMREF Kenya among other local organizations.
For more information contact: CSEM Advisory Group members:
Rosemary Mburu, WACI Health
rosemary.mburu@gmail.com
Rachel Ndirangu, Christian Aid
RNdirangu@christian-aid.org
All of these events are volunteer efforts. Because these events are organized on a volunteer basis with limited resources contributed by organizing partners, they may not have the space to accommodate all interested participants but organizers will do their best to respond to requests to attend. If there is no meeting currently planned for your country, we encourage you to volunteer to organize one.
