Africa-Press – Liberia. The Public Health Initiative of Liberia (PHIL) has said that there is a need for adequate budget allocation to the health sector of the country if the state is to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC) by 2030.
PHIL Executive Director, Joyce Kilikpo, said though the government is responsible for the health of the citizenry with sufficient support and investment, but achieving such milestone such as the UHC requires the concerted efforts of every major stakeholder.
She spoke at the end of a five-day training her organization held in Monrovia recently. “The training is aimed at promoting Universal health coverage, health financing and budget advocacy for Civil Society and the media,” she said.
The training brought together over twenty-five participants drawn from the media and CSOs.
“The essence of the training is to empower the trainees to go out and provide health advocacy in relations to Liberia meeting universal health coverage by 2030,” Ms. Kilikpo said at the close of the training exercise.
In order for Liberia to meet this universal goal by 2030, she said there must be increase in awareness and budgetary allocation to CSOs in the health space.
“Investment in health is a technical and political issue because it is a social contract between citizens and the state. And since health is a human right, it is incumbent upon the governments to ensure the realization of the right to health by citizens through budgetary allocation of the available resources,” she noted.
She averred that citizens, civil society and parliamentarians play an integral role in holding government accountable for policy and investment choices made along the path of universal health. As such, she continued, it is important to build the capacity of civil society actors in the health financing space of Liberia at this crucial time.
“Liberia cannot archive the 2030 goals without sufficient investment in health care. It is about time that CSOs and the media step up to make awareness on universal health coverage. Investment in health is key and must not be overlooked,” she concluded.
The training was conducted with support from WACI Health in Kenya and global partners.
Also making remarks on behalf of their fellow participants, Mrs. Grace Z. Gaie and Davestus James thanked PHIL for the initiative. They promised to use the knowledge acquired properly to enable Liberia achieve the universal health coverage by 2030.
“I want to say thank you to our facilitator for this learning opportunity. This should not be the last. We learned a lot here during this training including equal participation in universal health coverage and budgeting. We pray that what we have learned here go a long way to drive the development agenda of Liberia, thank you,” Mrs. Gaie said.
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