DSW, as part of the Euroleverage project, organised a one-day advocacy meeting at Mityana Local Government District headquarters in May 2014 to distribute information and copies of the findings of policy and budget analysis that we have undertaken recently. The meeting was also intended to be an opportunity for developing strategies to address family planning gaps identified by the analysis. This was considered a successful meeting, one of the achievements being that civil society organizations pledged support to improve family planning service delivery within the district.
Challenges
Some of the challenges identified by the budget analysis included: inadequate health provider’s knowledge and skills in providing family planning counselling to clients; communities, negative perceptions about family planning services; myths, misconceptions and lack of proper information on modern family planning; and, a lack of consistency by clients in the utilization of a particular method and adherence to a specific family planning.
To address the challenges caused by these knowledge gaps on family planning in the community, the district leadership committed to sponsor radio programs to reach out general public with proper information regarding family planning. Invited civil society groups also committed to support and strengthen outreach activities whereas Reproductive Health Uganda (RHU) promised to use its Village Health Teams to create awareness and also to reach out and provide family planning services for free in hard to reach areas like, landing sites and islands. While DSW promised to follow up with Ministry of Health on family planning policy guidelines dissemination and support community dialogues on family planning, White Ribbon pledged to provide health workers trainings and re-orient health workers about the family planning standards, guidelines and policies.
The catholic diocese also advised the district council to collaborate with the diocese, noting; the diocese is willing to write a joint project proposal and approach some donors to support health initiative in the district with technical assistance from DSW side on proposal writing.
What is Euroleverage?
Euroleverage is a DSW three-year advocacy project whose overall goal is to increase European Union financial resources and resultant national and district budget allocations in Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. The project’s objective in Mityana district is to improve access to family planning. The project focus area in Uganda are the Mityana and Kamuli districts.
