THE AFRICA MOVEMENT FOR HEALTHY COMMUNITIES


1. ABSTRACT:

People, government and their partners must be jointly involved in health care. Not involving communities has been the major weakness in our collective efforts. A civil society movement would assist in promoting and tracking collaborative efforts of the various actors, and help overcome Africa’s persistence health crises, the major obstacle to socio-economic development.


Community participation will lead to community empowerment and finally to community ownership. Community ownership would be accelerated through a continuing consensus initiated at the central level moving through intermediate and district levels to communities – where there would be broad based dialogue. Their needs, wants and ideas would then be consolidated by their district and provincial offices. This would serve as the basis for a national health conference, and the beginning of a new cycle.


Global Health Dialogue is conceived as a network of individuals and groups desirous of contributing to the liberation of Africans from the current health crisis and achieve development through health. We could mobilize ourselves as a think tank that would include:


1.African experts, young and old, working in Africa or away from home

2.Sponsors, promoters or investors living in Africa or else where.

3.Local partners-committed community members and their advisers.

The activities of the Global health Dialogue include:
Meeting health and development challenges
Implementing health for development packages and
Accelerating progress towards millennium goals.

An African Healthy Communities Movement targeting local councils and authorities will mobilize African communities in community health partnerships for mobilizing necessary resources, ensuring stewardships for transparent management and identifying effective leaders for community development, targeting the millennium development goals. Communities will meet the challenges of self reliance with the help of support groups, members of community health associations. Twinning between local councils in Africa and other continents as well as help from the African diaspora would be determinant.


Capacity building for healthy communities will ensure the realization of the strategies of the movement which are to promote health awareness, mobilize funds for health development and target community ownership.


Roles and responsibilities of the key actors of the African healthy communities’ movement would include health promotion in communities (local entities) and networking/twining, with information exchange (local institutions). These three groups of core activities would be put together in a coherent package of messages, peoples’ initiatives and interventions, local, regional and national. The fundamental community benefits would include child survival (low infant mortality rates), safe motherhood and healthy workforce ((low adult morbidity and mortality rates).



2. CONTEXT:


Political independence in the decade of the 60s was followed by nearly two decades of economic growth during which there was remarkable progress in the health field. The decade of the 80s brought with it economic woes, and a definite slowing down, if not reversal of earlier health gains. People, governments and their partners have been fighting back, trying to overcome the crisis, but instead of health for all, death appears to be winning.


Not involving communities from the beginning, some times never, has been the major weakness of our collective efforts. We have classified the community as the lowest level of national hierarchy of responsibilities; whereas the community is the Alpha and the Omega, and the principal stake holder in development. There is an urgent need for Africans to meet the challenge of Africa’s persisting health crisis. We Africans must significantly increase our participation in the fight for our own survival.


Community participation has not been easy. Even though the human potential exists, this must be converted to ‘kinetic energy’. African communities lost their independence since the slave trade and the colonial period. They are yet to recover the initiative during nearly half a century of national independence, necessarily characterized by centralization of authority.


None of the above historical handicaps justify Africa’s image of the sleeping giant or the beggar sitting on a golden stool, on a gold mine. The populations of the global village are currently running the same marathon; our health status is a major determinant to our success – our share in the world’s markets, our ranking in human development and the preservation of our cultural heritage.


The current decentralization exercise is therefore of great historical importance. Concurrently with the implementation of the millennium development goals:
1.It would change life styles and attitudes to work from passive observers to active players.
2.It would change patterns of solidarity – from small clan or tribal ‘meetings’ to  incorporate broader and stronger partnerships at local, national and continental levels.
3.It would change patterns of work and productivity – greater knowledge, better tools and sustainable financial resources.


The current international development culture opens the door sufficiently for Africans to enter the Board Room. African Unity and solidarity was palpable during the struggle for independence and the fight against Apartheid. In the continuing struggle for socio economic development, working together for better health would become a common objective, our common interest on the road map to a healthy and strong Africa


The Africa movement will collaborate with public and private sector institutions to ensure that additional resources reach local populations and promote community participation, empowerment and ownership. The movement will target corporate behaviour, priority programmes and community benefits. Moreover, this Africa movement will:

• Promote partnerships for resources mobilization
• Ensure stewardship for transparent management
• Produce leadership for community development

Membership is open to individuals or institutions that accept the above objectives, abide by the statutory provisions and the internal regulations. The network of actors would include a tripartite of local communities (councils), their support structures (national / diaspora) and “governing” bodies. The initiative will promote partnerships for health resource mobilization, ensure stewardships for transparent management, and identify leadership for community development. Read more