The right to health and community monitoring for accountability

December 5, 2011

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The Accountability and Monitoring in Health Initiative (AMHI) of the Open Society Foundations’ Public Health Program recently published the proceedings from a meeting on community monitoring for accountability in health.

The convening ‘Practitioners Convening on Community Monitoring for Accountability in Health’ took place in Johannesburg, South Africa in July 2011. Holding governments accountable for not doing enough to realise the right to health of their citizens is one of the main elements of a rights-based approach.

Community monitoring

The convening brought together 39 participants from 12 countries around the globe with a mandate to review current experiences in community monitoring and to begin shaping an agenda for strengthening the field. The discussions focused on:

  • Sharing and synthesizing learning on the contexts for, purpose, methods, reporting and use of different approaches for generation and use of community based evidence for social accountability in health.
  • Identifying and critically assessing the existing resources and resource gaps in knowledge, skills and conditions for effective use of community monitoring in health and identify areas for potential action to address the identified gaps.
  • Identifying strategies to strengthen the field of community monitoring for accountability in health.

The reports (including a summary and the full Minutes) as well as other resource materials from the convening are accessible on the Public Health Program Seminars website.

About AMHI

The Accountability and Monitoring in Health Initiative is one of the global initiatives  within the Public Health Program. It seeks to strengthen meaningful and sustained engagement by affected communities in the development, implementation, and monitoring of health budgets, policies, programmes and practices; promote government accountability to citizens; and foster an informed and open dialogue about the governance of public health systems, provision of health services, and advancement of health and rights.

AMHI webpage