Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) play a vital role in Sierra Leone’s health system by delivering services and advocating for the right to health. During a visit to Freetown, Tobias Luppe – manager of the Oxfam managed Health Policy Action Fund (HPAF) – met with a Sierra Leonean Civil Society Leader. In the fifth and final part of our series on Sierra Leone, we hear about his work in the run-up to last month’s elections.

Sierra Leone – one of the poorest countries on the planet – has some of the world’s worst health indicators: More than 10% of all children die before the age of 5 and every hundredth woman dies during pregnancy or childbirth. Life expectancy is at 49 years – about 20 years below the global average.

As member of the Spanish All Party Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health, I recently had the chance to participate in a parliamentarian field trip, supported by Action for Global Health, to a very special country: the Philippines. It is not only special for being a very populated state formed by 7,107 islands but for being at a crucial moment in the path towards being able to guarantee the right to health to its entire population.

Ever had to queue for the bathroom? Ever been annoyed with being asked to pay for using the loo in a club? Ever disliked the smell in a public toilet?

Try Kroobay a slum in Freetown, Sierra Leone. There are exactly four public toilets for a population of 12,000. If you want to use them you are asked to pay 1000 Leonie, which is about what you would pay for a cheap meal on the street or what a poor person has to survive on. Sometimes they are cleaned, but only with water for lack of detergent.

Last June, world leaders met in New York at the UN High Level Meeting on AIDS to renew their effort to achieve universal access to prevention, treatment, care and support for HIV by 2015 under the slogan: “Intensifying our efforts to eliminate HIV and AIDS”. However in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo there is still lot to do around those issues. What has been done so far? Does everybody have access to prevention, treatment, care, and support for HIV according to the aim of the Universal Access?

While there are still some commentators who seem stuck on the question of whether removing fees for health care in poor countries is a good idea at all – thankfully there are others who have moved on to the much more critical question of not whether this should happen – but how. The recent World Health Report on Health Financing for Universal Coverage leaves no doubt that user fees are a bad idea. In the Director General’s own words, they constitute “by far the greatest obstacle to progress” on the path to universal access.

In June GAVI together with governments and private sector raised US$4.3bn to make new vaccines available for the poorest children in low and, hopefully, middle-income countries. Despite these times of financial austerity, it is encouraging that the political will of governments and generosity of the private sector contributed to higher than expected GAVI Conference financial pledges. It is now up to GAVI and its programme implementers to use these resources efficiently.

Italian AfGH partners have been hitting the campaign trail to promote Health Heroes, together with a wide coalition of partners. Earlier this month, we held a Health Heroes exhibition at Rome’s Auditorium Parco della Musica, which opened on 13 July to coincide with a concert by Elton John, a well known and active supporter of [...]

Last month, Action for Global Health re-launched our “Health Heroes” campaign, which puts the spotlight on the men, women and children around the world who work tirelessly everyday to make a difference and save lives. People like Gowthami, Tante Mado, Moussa, Deepika, Firoza, Samnang and Martha are all doing their bit to ensure fair and [...]

Maternal mortality – are we going to beat it? That’s the question everyone’s asking today, on International Day of the Midwife. Read the testimonies of midwives in Africa, and find out whether they think their countries can meet their MDG 5 target to reduce maternal mortality by 75%.