IPPF, the White Ribbon Alliance, Save the Children and World Vision are joining with partners to host community and national Citizens’ Hearings this spring – as well as a global Citizens’ Hearing during the World Health Assembly in Geneva this May and one at the United Nations General Assembly in New York this September. These organizations, other partners and the public are calling governments to account for their delivery on MDGs 4 and 5, and are pushing for a strong accountability framework in the new Every Woman Every Child Global Strategy 2.0 and within the Sustainable Development Goals.
Citizen Hearings have already taken place in India, Indonesia, Nepal, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda.
This forum has given people at the local and national level the opportunity to highlight the challenges to improving maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health in their area. Citizens have engaged with parlimentarians, ministries of finance, ministries of health, and representatives from other government bodies.
Stay tuned to CitizensPost.org for information on upcoming hearings in Malawi, Bangladesh, Ghana, South Africa, Lesotho, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Pakistan, Afghanistan and many more countries.
Women wait with their children to see a doctor at a mobile health clinic in the Okhla Industrial Area slum in Delhi, India. Photo: SuzannaLee/Save the Children
If you are interested in coordinating your own Citizen Hearing, there are toolkits available in English, French and Spanish.