Reproductive health project to boost Nairobi County services

Family Care Medical Centre in Kibera slums, Nairobi. The county is home to several slums,  home to thousands of poor women and girls who can't access adequate reproductive health services.

Photo credit: Evans Habil | Nation Media Group

What you need to know:

  • Nairobi County, the Crawn Trust and UNDP has embarked on a project dubbed ‘Health Rights Advocacy for Women and Girls’ to look into gender impacts in the health sector. 
  • The project, which is part of the UNDP Spais programme, intends to develop an accountability framework and engender the monitoring and oversight in the healthcare sector.
  • Project aims at addressing challenges faced in Nairobi's health sector that hinder provision of robust reproductive health services, among them corruption.

Nairobi County, the Community Advocacy and Awareness (Crawn) Trust and UNDP has embarked on a project dubbed ‘Health Rights Advocacy for Women and Girls’ to look into gender impacts in the health sector.

The project, which is part of the UNDP Strengthening Public Accountability and Integrity Systems (Spais) programme, intends to develop an accountability framework and engender the monitoring and oversight in the healthcare sector.

Nairobi is the most populous county and home to several slums, which are home to thousands of poor women and girls who cannot access adequate reproductive health due to high poverty levels.

As part of its preparation, Crawn Trust with support from UNDP recently held a virtual inception meeting to review developed scorecard and data collection tools for the health rights and advocacy for women and girls in strengthening public accountability and integrity systems.

Reproductive health services

The project has brought on board the Ministry of Health, Nairobi County health department, civil society and rights organizations, among other stakeholders that seek solutions on high mortality rate.

Crawn Trust Executive Director Daisy Amdany said the project aims at addressing challenges faced in the health sector in Nairobi that hinder provision of robust reproductive health services, among them corruption.

She added that the project will also look into corruption in the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and its effects.

“Right to healthcare is a fundamental right to Kenyans but many times corruption impends implementation of healthcare goals by the government,” said Ms Amdany.

Health docket

During the meeting, it emerged that many people have limited knowledge on what the Constitution says on their right to health.

“The population does not know what their right to health entail. They do not know what action to take once they fall sick,” said a participant.

The meeting agreed to lobby for the increase of funds in the health sector in the county. Participants also proposed that the county seals loopholes that abet loss and misappropriation of money in the health docket, leading to poor services particularly for women and girls.

They also rooted for advocacy to enlighten the population on their constitutional health rights. Expansion of health facilities, purchase of more equipment and drugs, and employment of more medical staff also came up as ways of improving healthcare services in the county.

Quality services

Dr Wangui Muthigani from the UHC secretariat noted the need to empower counties to speak about their healthcare.

“We should be held accountable, which will help us to empower Kenyans and give them good healthcare and have better health outcomes,” said Dr Muthigani.

Participants also noted that civil society organizations should be louder on corruption in the healthcare sector as it hinders provision of quality services including reproductive health care.

Crawn Trust has contracted QDATAMS (Q-Data and Mapping Services), a Research/Monitoring and Evaluation firm based in Nairobi, technical assistance and capacity building in the development sector to undertake the project.

The firm will support in various activities including the development of a social accountability scorecard for maternal and child health in Nairobi County.