He also appealed to them to foster strong collaboration and networking between their communities and government to improve health care delivery.  Mr. Ananga made the appeal at the opening of a three-day training workshop for 45 CHMC members drawn from 15 health facilities in the Adaklu District at Adaklu-Goefe.

The Community Based Citizen Voice and Action (CBCVA) training workshop is being organized by Good Neighbours, a humanitarian and development Non- Governmental Organization in collaboration with the Adaklu District Directorate of Health Services.

The CBCVA is a social accountability approach used at the local level to encourage increase used of dialogue between communities and government in order to improve services like health care, education and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) among others, which impact the daily lives of the people.

Mr. Ananga said the workshop was aimed at equipping participants to be able to engage policy makers on the delivery of quality health care and also to measure government’s performance at the local level and identify gaps.

He asked them to monitor standard monitoring sessions in their various facilities, dialogue sessions with service providers and local authorities and facilitate development of action plans for the facilities.

Mr. Ananga also asked them to monitor projects and service providers and mobilize their communities on maternal and child health issues. He appealed to them to make conscious efforts to link community issues to national policy advocacy and use dialogue as engagement tool.

Topics to be treated at the workshop include; exploring key concepts of CBCVA, local government and community power, and community meetings and data collection.