Justice and Peace Desk Holds Planning Meeting with National Level Partners
By Deodatus Muriya (HoD M&E)
The Justice and Peace Desk of Karonga Diocese held a stakeholders’ planning meeting with its health governance project implementing partners at national level in Salima District on 25th July, 2018.
The Justice and Peace Desk called for this meeting to familiarize key implementation partners on the design and operational modalities of the health governance project. The third phase of the Promotion of High Quality, Accountable and Responsive Public Health Services Project links the local health and governance issues to national level advocacy.
According to the Justice and Peace Desk Officer Louis Nkhata, the Desk partnered with Malawi Health Equity Network and the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace National Office to take lead in organizing and implementing national level advocacy and engagement to influence policy change.
According to Nkhata, these national level organisations are supposed to be facilitating engagement meetings with players at national level. These include Ministry of Information, Ministry of Health, Human rights Commission and Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA Malawi) to influence the speedy gazetting and implementation of Access to Information (ATI) Act by highlighting health sector transparency concerns.
The Justice and Peace Desk of Karonga is the key implementing agency of the project responsible for coordinating and implementing all the project activities.
The meeting, which took place at Gannat Executive Lodge, was attended by CCJP National Coordinator Boniface Chibwana; Director of Social Development at the Catholic Secretariat Casterns Mulume; MHEN Executive Director George Jobe. A team from Karonga Diocese which comprised of Justice and Peace and Health Desk officers and Monitoring and Evaluation Officer.
According to Casterns Mulumbe, the meeting achieved its intended purpose as at the end of it partners had a deep understanding of the project and produced a detailed implementation plan for the coming quarter.
The health governance project is funded by Open Society Initiatives for Southern Africa (OSISA). The goal of the project is to promote transparency, accountability and responsiveness in health service delivery.