A successful civil society advocacy meeting was held at UN house in Abuja, Nigeria, on July 30, 2019, to create a space for civil society and stakeholders to discuss domestic priorities for UHC and how to leverage the upcoming HLM on UHC to address key challenges in ensuring that they ‘leave no one behind’ in Nigeria.
The meeting was attended by 34 participants with 26 participants from civil society, five from the UN (WHO and UNAIDS) and three from Government (Ministry of Budgeting, National Planning and State Malaria Control Program).
The following was accomplished at the Nigeria country advocacy meeting (CAM):
- At short notice, 22 leading CSOs and CSO networks/coalitions were mobilized from all regions of the country with the support of the CSEM, UNAIDS, WHO and IFRC to organize the Nigeria civil society advocacy meeting. Nigeria was not included in the initial CSEM plan for this type of advocacy
- Nigerian CSOs spoke with one voice in demanding that the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) makes realistic commitments at the HLM.
- Country specific challenges, data and information were reviewed and deliberated.
- Six global UHC2030 key ‘asks’ were determined.
- A country-specific civil society Plan of Action (PoA) was developed.
- Civil society made a commitment to support, work with and hold FGN accountable to their commitments after the HLM.
Next steps will be to activate post-CAM plans, quickly commence targeted advocacy towards achieving CSO aim towards the HLM, plan for active regional and state-level advocacy and plan for national universal health coverage.
