An intercountry workshop on the development of the accountability framework in the Eastern Mediterranean Region was organized by the World Health Organization Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean, in collaboration with WHO headquarters, from 2 to 4 September 2012. The overall objective of the workshop was to bring together key stakeholders from ministries of health, parliamentarians and the partner community to discuss and develop country roadmaps to further enhance results and accountability for women's and children's health, in particular, and the health sector as a whole.
The specific objectives of the meeting were to:
- orient key stakeholders on the context and implications of the recommendations of the Commission on Information and Accountability for Women's and Children's Health;
- assess the current situation in terms of progress and plans, opportunities and challenges for implementing the recommendations and identity priority actions;
- build on existing plans and frameworks, develop country roadmaps for enhancing accountability with costed activities for the next 4 years outlining how gaps and priorities will be addressed and implemented; and
- establish a shared understanding of the work required and the roles and responsibilities of each partner in implementing the roadmap.
This intercountry workshop, one in a series of regional workshops that will ultimately cover 75 priority countries, is part of the action plan for implementing the recommendations of the Commission on Information and Accountability for Women’s and Children’s Health. The Commission issued its recommendations in May 2011. A multi-stakeholder process, including a consultation in July 2011, resulted in the translation of the recommendations into a common strategic workplan. The workplan identifies priority areas of focus for strengthening country accountability based on these 10 key recommendations.
Each country team completed a self-assessment of the current situation in their respective countries in seven priority areas of focus: monitoring of results; strengthening use of ICT; resource tracking; birth and death registration; maternal death review and surveillance; national mechanisms for reviews and accountability; advocacy/action. These self-assessments can be found in Annex 1 of the report on the meeting.
Country participants will present the results of the assessment, get feedback and agreement on the contextual analysis, and discuss priority-setting at a national stakeholder workshop. These workshops will result in the development of a completed roadmap which will be submitted to WHO.