Civil Society Leverages Budget Data to Strengthen Advocacy for Domestic Investment in Family Planning
On November 30, 2022, PAI and civil society partners in Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia officially launched the FY 2019/20 and FY 2020 family planning (FP) budget scorecards. The virtual panel consisted of speakers from Groupe de Recherche, d’action et de formation en épidémiologie et en développement (GRAFED, Benin); Initiative pour la Justice Sociale, la Transparence et la Bonne Gouvernance en Côte d’Ivoire (SOCIAL JUSTICE, Côte d’Ivoire); Malawi Network of AIDS Service Organisations (MANASO, Malawi); Samasha (Uganda); Centre for Reproductive Health and Education (CRHE, Zambia); and PAI (USA).
Achieving universal access to FP services and supplies requires that governments allocate adequate domestic resources to FP and ensure these funds are properly disbursed and spent. The scorecards assess how well governments allocated and spent FP funds over one fiscal year and provide a snapshot of each government’s performance in meeting its financial commitments to FP and also assess the transparency of the budget data required to track those commitments.
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Speaker Information
Jérôme Chatigre, executive director, Groupe de recherche, d’action et de formation en épidémiologie et en développement (GRAFED), Benin
A sociolinguist, administrator and project analyst, Jérôme is GRAFED’s executive director and coordinator of the Coalition of CSOs for Family Planning in Benin. He has 20 years of experience in the country’s health sector, particularly reproductive and community health. He was previously a consultant at IntraHealth Mali for 10 years, working on the Civil Society for Family Planning (CS4FP) project, and then an advocacy expert on the E4HQ-2W3R-TV Strategic Subsidy project at AmplifyChange. He has a great interest in issues relating to advocacy for family planning.
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Wezi Mjojo, head of finance and administration, Malawi Network of AIDS Service Organisations (MANASO), Malawi
Wezi has worked with MANASO for over six years in different roles, including as acting executive director. As the head of finance and administration, she has tracked family planning budget data and conducted budget advocacy as the implementer of PAI’s Government Accountability for Family Planning Budgets project. Before joining MANASO, Wezi spent 25 years in the public sector, including 10 years at the senior management level, where she developed her knowledge of policy, programming, resource mobilization, budgeting, finance and management. Through this work, she engaged with central ministries, development partners and local governments. In her last position as executive secretary for the National Local Government Finance Committee (NLGFC), she oversaw the devolution of functions and sectoral finances to local structures from 15 sectors.
Amos Mwale, founder and executive director, Centre for Reproductive Health and Education (CRHE), Zambia
Amos has over 15 years of experience working in advocacy, health systems strengthening, gender transformative approaches and sexual and reproductive health. He is a member of the Global Advisory Council for UNFPA; a CSO member of the GFF Investors Group; the NGO member of the Governance and Ethics Committee of WHO’s Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health; and was one of the key members who developed Zambia’s FP2030 commitments. He has co-chaired the Reproductive Health Advocacy Network Africa (RHANA), a CSO network of the IPPF Africa region, and has been a member of the Zambian delegation to the U.N. Commission for Population and Development’s annual meetings for the last six years, working with the multistakeholder country platform for RMNCAH+N.
Charity Kirabo Nagemi, health economist, Samasha, Uganda
Charity is a health economist at Samasha who has expertise in health financing; health policy; costing of health interventions; budget tracking for health programs including family planning; advocacy and accountability for family planning; research; and public health. With funding from PAI, Charity leads the team implementing the Government Accountability for Family Planning Budgets project in Uganda. As part of this project, Charity tracks budgets for family planning services and commodities using the Common Framework methodology, which generates evidence to strengthen Samasha’s advocacy efforts for increased domestic financing of family planning.
Jennifer Sleboda, project manager, PAI, USA
Jennifer leads PAI’s Government Accountability for Family Planning Budgets project and has over 15 years of experience in international development, with a focus on transparency, accountability and citizen participation in public finance management. Prior to joining PAI, she spent 11 years at the International Budget Partnership developing the capacity of civil society organizations in Africa, Asia and Latin America to conduct budget analysis and monitoring and use the findings to strengthen sectoral advocacy. She also has four years of experience in Tanzania, where she worked on a participatory research project to track the government’s poverty reduction expenditures in three districts.
Julien Tingain, executive director, Initiative pour la Justice Sociale, la Transparence et la Bonne Gouvernance en Côte d’Ivoire (SOCIAL JUSTICE), Côte d’Ivoire
Julien, president and founder of SOCIAL JUSTICE, has over 17 years of experience working on processes of good governance and transparency globally, having carried out trainings at the national, regional and international levels. Julien’s expertise stems from his experience working at several national institutions, embassies in Côte d’Ivoire (USA, France, Belgium, United Kingdom), NGOs and international institutions. He is also a leader and founding member of several good governance platforms and networks in Côte d’Ivoire. To date, Julien coordinates the Ivorian Civil Society Platform of the Open Government Partnership (PSCI-PGO in French) and, in July 2022, launched a new national platform on the budget, called Cost Budget Civ (Coalition of CSOs on the Budget), an objective of which is to build the capacity of civil society on public finance issues. In 2010, Julien was designated Côte d’Ivoire’s “Young African Leader” and participated in the President’s Forum with Young African Leaders, an experience exchange with President Obama and other young African leaders.
Christina Wegs, vice president of global programs and advocacy, PAI, USA
Christina is a social justice advocate, public health expert and nonprofit leader. Her 20-year career has focused on advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights, including access to contraception, comprehensive sexuality education, safe abortion and post-abortion care, respectful maternity care and gender-based violence prevention and care. She has also worked to promote rights-based approaches to HIV/AIDS prevention, care and treatment. She brings deep expertise in gender justice, coalition-building, civil society strengthening, policy advocacy and people-driven accountability. Prior to PAI, she was the global advocacy director for health equity and rights at CARE.