Strong and independent citizens’ groups play an instrumental role in ensuring that government, health care institutions, and health programs are held accountable to the communities they are designed to serve. The Open Society Public Health Program works to ensure that civil society groups have the information, skills, and capacity to hold governments accountable for their actions. Through its Accountability and Monitoring in Health Initiative and Global Health Financing Initiative, the Open Society Public Health Program promotes civil society leadership and participation in shaping health policies that are based on evidence and respect human rights.
The Accountability and Monitoring in Health Initiative (AMHI) was created in 2011 from the merger of the Public Health Program’s budget and community monitoring initiatives (the Health Budget Monitoring and Advocacy Project and Public Health Watch). AMHI seeks to strengthen meaningful and sustained engagement by affected communities in the development, implementation, and monitoring of health budgets, policies, programs and practices; promote government accountability to citizens; and foster an informed and open dialogue about the governance of public health systems, provision of health services, and advancement of health and rights.
Through its grantmaking portfolio, the initiative supports civil society groups to effectively and strategically use monitoring to promote accountability at the national, regional, and global levels. In South Africa for instance, AMHI funds the Center for Economic Governance and AIDS in Africa (CEGAA) and the Treatment Action Campaign to collaboratively monitor local HIV and TB budgets and service delivery in two districts and to advocate for better planning and budgeting to address unmet needs. At the global level, AMHI has been funding the Treatment Monitoring and Advocacy Project of the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition to annually monitor access to HIV treatment and related services in multiple countries and advocate both nationally and at international fora for improved services.
The Open Society Public Health Program has a particular interest in strengthening the voice and participation of affected communities in shaping and developing health-related policies and budgets. Since 2008, the Public Health Program has supported a coalition in Macedonia to advocate for appropriate budgeting for and delivery of immunizations for Roma children to reduce recurrent measles outbreaks and in 2010, it began working with two Roma organizations, SASTIPEN and Amalipe, to undertake community monitoring to advocate for non-discriminatory maternal and primary health care services for Roma communities in Bulgaria and Romania.
The Accountability and Monitoring in Health Initiative also partners with organizations that build civil society capacity in budget and community monitoring and advocacy, including the Centre for Social Accountability at Rhodes University, the Centre for Economic Governance and AIDS in Africa, and the International Budget Partnership.
The initiative also seeks to strengthen the practice of applied budget work and community monitoring for accountability in health through supporting the documentation and dissemination of resource materials such as frameworks, methods and tools, and successful case studies, particularly those applicable to marginalized groups, and through creating spaces for practitioners to share experiences and identify priority areas and strategies to advance the field.
The Accountability and Monitoring in Health Initiative currently works in Eastern and Southern Africa, Central and Eastern Europe, and Central America.
The Global Health Financing Initiative works to ensure that global funding for health is raised, allocated, and used in ways that meet the health needs of marginalized persons, strengthen civil society engagement in decision-making, promote and respect human rights, and lead to greater accountability and transparency.
In particular, the initiative focuses on global health donors and financing mechanisms that support programs on HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis, and hepatitis C.
