Network of African Parliamentary Committees of Health to Focus on Health Workforce Issues
The steering committee of the Network of African Parliamentary Committees on Health (NEAPACOH) has decided that human resources for health (HRH) will be one of its main areas of focus for the next two years, along with maternal health, family planning, and health financing. The decision came at a meeting of the committee in Kampala, Uganda on April 12, hosted by CapacityPlus associate partner Partners in Population and Development (PPD). 
As an intergovernmental alliance of developing countries, PPD works with the network of parliamentarians as part of its advocacy to promote South-South cooperation toward attainment of the global population and reproductive health agenda for sustainable development.
NEAPACOH, which initially included parliamentarians from 18 southern and eastern African countries, has now expanded its scope to embrace the whole of Africa.
Influencing decision-makers
NEAPACOH’s decision to focus on HRH was directly influenced by presentations given by CapacityPlus at the group’s past two regional meetings, notes Patrick Mugirwa, program officer at PPD’s Africa Regional Office in Kampala.
The first presentation, made at the September 2011 meeting, focused on the critical role of health workers in expanding access to family planning and reproductive health services. A subsequent presentation as part of a capacity-building session on HRH at the August 2012 meeting highlighted how family planning use and child and maternal mortality rates vary in countries facing similar health workforce constraints and explored reasons why some countries are doing better than others through more efficient use of available resources.
Making commitments
PPD will now advocate for NEAPACOH members to make concrete commitments in the area of HRH at the group’s forthcoming regional meeting in September 2013.
(NEAPACOH was formerly known as the Southern and Eastern Africa Alliance of Parliamentary Committees on Health or SEAPACOH.)
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Photo by Trevor Snapp, courtesy of IntraHealth International. (A health worker in Namibia cares for a patient at the Lutheran Medical Services Hospital)
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