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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Godfrey Magumba, Dr¹, Geoffrey Musisi, Mr¹, Samson Kironde, Dr², Barbara Durr, Ms¹, and Judith Oki, Ms¹. (1) Uganda Program for Human and Holistic Development, P.O.Box 40070, Kampala, Uganda, +256 41 222 856, gmagumba@upholduganda.org, (2) Monitoring, Evaluation and Dissemination, Uganda Program for Human and Holistic Development (UPHOLD), P.O.Box 40070, Kampala, Uganda

Issues The quest for universal access public health services, a goal for Uganda, must tackle the disproportionate distribution of health facilities in urban and peri-urban areas, with rural areas remaining underserved. Civil Society and Community-Based Organizations are perceived as able partners in ‘filling the gap' in service delivery to hard-to-reach areas. This paper describes how civil society organizations (CSO) competencies were leveraged through grants-making for public health in 33 districts.

Description John Snow Incorporated, currently implements a multi-sectoral five-year UPHOLD Project in Uganda. In 2005, UPHOLD issued a public, transparent, and competitive request for applications (RFA) valued at $5.13 million, open to interested CSOs, including faith-based and community-based ones. Applications for community action grants that addressed district-defined priorities in health, HIV/AIDS and primary education were solicited. Through a multi-actor, public-private partnership-driven process, 625 applications were reviewed. Of these, 41 lead organizations and their combined 70 plus partner grassroots organizations were funded.

Lesson learned Civil society organizations (CSO) demonstrated solid results in improved community mobilization to use HIV/AIDS prevention services. For example, the number of functional HIV Counselling and Testing (HCT) increased from 32 in October 2004 to 119 (including outreaches) in December 2005. Most of the new sites explicitly served vulnerable populations. The expansion of service sites yielded a threefold rise in clients who received HCT (from 17,342 in 2004 to 56,389 at the end of 2005).

Recommendations Districts governments can proactively expand access to health services by explicitly leveraging the capabilities of CSO and grassroots organizations.

Learning Objectives:

• By the end of the session, participants will learn how strenghthening of public-private partnerships has led to scale-up of services and improved service utilization in resource limited settings

Related Web page: www.upholduganda.org

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Not Answered