the 6th caravan of Ouagadougou partnership donors started on April 24 in Lomé and ended on April 26, 2023 after three days of intense activities. What can we learn from the meeting?
The caravan started on the morning of April 24 with three major visits, notably to UNFPA, the United States Embassy and the Department of Mother and Child Health (DMSE). According to the Director of OPCU, Marie Ba, a request has been made to donors and various foreign governments for assistance in mobilizing resources and increasing political commitment to further prioritize the family planning.
A discussion session with civil society and private sector actors took place in the evening and during which the achievements of civil society organizations in relation to family planning and reproductive health were presented, high-impact practices and challenges that act as barriers to achieving desired goals. According to the youth focal point of the PO in Togo, Dorcas Essilivi, among the difficulties are the opening hours of the health centers which are not adapted to the timetable of the young people who are often at these times in the school or in apprenticeship workshops. She also mentioned the low eligibility of young CSOs for calls for projects. ” The number of years of experience or the financial statements required are too heavy for us young CSOs “explained Dorcas. She also mentioned the socio-cultural constraints which always constitute an obstacle to the popularization of messages in rural areas. Added to this are the difficulties of access to these environments due to the lack of funding.
For civil society, the challenges range from the mobilization of endogenous resources to the promotion of action research, to strengthening the coordination of the Network of civil society organizations involved in family planning (ROSCI SR/PF). The other challenge, according to Edem Dzotsi, the PO’s civil society focal point, is to achieve ” ensure systematic capitalization to have a database each year that maps the achievements resulting from innovations in reproductive health and family planning ».
Discussions continued on April 25 in the presence of private sector actors and the director of maternal and child health, Dr. Abram Amétépé Agossou, who raised a complaint. « It is on the ground that we realize that certain actions are carried out. Really allow us to coordinate the activities that everyone is doing on the ground he suggested, inviting all the partners to often involve the ministry in the development of the various plans.
In addition, the UCPO team and the partners exchanged at the end of the day with the Minister of Primary and Secondary Education and Crafts, Prof. Dodzi Kokoroko and Youth Minister Miriam Dossou-D’Almeida. An opportunity to remind the country’s authorities of Togo’s commitment to the mobilization of domestic resources. ” Togo is committed with the FP2030 initiative and the Ouagadougou Partnership to be able to increase by 10% each year the share and contribution of domestic funds allocated to the purchase of contraceptives and family planning. It is a commitment that we have come to reiterate and that the Togolese government fully intends to honour. This is an opportunity to see to what extent the partners could also increase their contribution “Commented the director of the UCPO to the press at the end of the meeting. The caravanners completed their adventure on April 26 with a visit to the prefectural hospital center of Aného (about 40 km from Lomé).
The caravan of donors, according to the director of the UCPO, Marie Ba, has existed since 2015. “ The Ouagadougou Partnership organizes it in order to bring donors, especially those working in Europe and the United States, to come to the countries of the Ouagadougou Partnership to better understand the context in which the country is evolving, to understand the challenges , prospects and being able to better support and accompany the action of the governments of our 9 countries in relation to family planning “, she explained. Thus, Togo was chosen with Guinea and Benin to reflect on how to act on the obstacles and increase the number of users of contraceptive products to achieve the country objective and thereby that of the Ouagadougou Partnership.
Atha ASSAN