By Foday Moriba Conteh

Health Alert Sierra Leone took a significant step to strengthen the country’s health system by successfully convening the inaugural meeting of the newly established Country-Level Parliamentary Caucus for Sustainable Health Financing and Immunization. The event was held on Thursday, June 5, at the Council of Churches Sierra Leone (CCSL) Hall on Kingharman Road in Freetown.

The caucus comprises 10 Members of Parliament from various committees including Health, Finance, Gender and Children’s Affairs and Agriculture. The initiative, funded by GAVI through the Global Health Advocacy Incubator (GHAI), aims to mobilize stronger domestic support for health and immunization financing in Sierra Leone.

During the meeting, participants reviewed and discussed the Terms of Reference (TOR) that will guide the operation and effectiveness of the caucus. The TOR outlines the caucus’s role as a dedicated platform for parliamentary advocacy, policy engagement and oversight to ensure increased and sustained public investment in the health sector; particularly in immunization.

Victor Lansana Koroma, Executive Director, Health Alert Sierra Leone, described the formation of a Country-Level Parliamentary Caucus for Sustainable Health Financing and Immunization as a significant step toward increasing domestic commitment to health and immunization financing in Sierra Leone.

He revealed that the initiative stemmed from a recent international engagement in Turkey, where Health Alert and a Sierra Leonean MP participated in the Global Health Advocacy Incubator (GHAI) meeting, funded by GAVI. One of the key action points from that session was for participating countries to establish parliamentary caucuses to promote health and immunization.

“The main purpose of today’s meeting is to bring together Parliamentarians to agree on a Terms of Reference (ToR) that will guide the operations of the caucus,” Victor Lansana Koroma explained. “This platform will champion advocacy efforts to increase domestic financing, ensure the Government meets its budgetary health commitments and fulfill co-financing obligations to GAVI.”

He added that the caucus will also play a critical lobbying role engaging both Government Ministries and development partners to ensure funding for primary healthcare and immunization is prioritized.

Looking ahead, the Executive Director said the next step will involve refining the Terms of Reference and developing a work plan to be shared with GHAI and GAVI. This plan will guide the caucus's future activities.

He also used the platform to urge the Government of Sierra Leone to urgently meet its June deadline for co-financing payments to GAVI, warning that failure to do so could impact immunization efforts nationwide.

“We are hopeful that Parliament will effectively engage the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Health to fulfill this crucial obligation,” he concluded.

Simeon Tamba Johnny, MP from Kono and Deputy Chair of the Parliamentary Oversight Committee on Health was part of the Sierra Leonean delegation in Istanbul. As chair of Thursday’s meeting, Hon. Simeon Tamba Johnny said that co-financing was a major issue discussed there.

“We all know that most of our immunization programmes are being sponsored by Gavi Sierra Leone being the recipient of Gavi supports, it was for such countries to appeal to Government to fulfil their commitment to co-financing,” he explained to the participants.

He pointed out that other African countries in attendance in Istanbul included Liberia, Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory coast, Cameron and Kenya of which he furthered that Sierra Leone still owed a backlog of its con-financing commitment, which he said calls for concerted efforts to be addressed. “We are here to have a network of civil society and parliamentarians to lobby Government,” he said.

Dr. Gibril Njie, Health Economist & Health Financing Specialist, Ministry of Health, while presenting the draft of the TOR and plan of actions for the Caucus said the partnership between GHIA and its local partners Health Alert and Wash Net Sierra Leone, alongside lawmakers and Ministry of Health was for them to form a lobbying group to engage internally with different structures to ensure that Sierra Leone continues to meet its commitment to co-financing.

“Gavi supports with a lot of finances for vaccines. But normally for them to continue, a country has to provide a percentage contribution. That’s co-financing. Another objective is to have the countries increase their financing to immunization,” Dr. Gibril Njie explained.

“Domestic funding allocation is small and sometimes has a lot of challenges which affect procurement of vaccines. All of these lead to many zero dose children,” he stressed.

Dr. Gibril Njie added that the purpose of the coalition was to influence policy and the budget processes in favour of increased financing of health and immunization.

Momoh Bockarie, Member, Finance Committee in Parliament, spoke about the need for the caucus to engage in aggressive campaign to achieve its goal.

“Development requires a holistic approach. No one person can do it alone,” said Hon. Momoh Bockarie, citing Sierra Leone’s failure to meet the African Union health funding target, which stands at 9 percent in 2025.

“We still have some gaps to cover,” he noted. “When we talk about health issues, we are talking about the lives of every Sierra Leonean; it doesn’t matter which political party you belong to. We should prioritize our health.”

Bernadette Wuyatta Songa, Chairperson of the Parliamentary Health Committee, who also chairs the Caucus, said its establishment was timely, coming after Gavi recognized Sierra Leone’s lead role in immunization efforts.

“That is happening because we have hard working men and women in these institutions to ensure that we meet our targets,” Hon. Bernadette Wuyatta Songa said. “And if that is happening, as parliamentarians our role is very simple, we ensure we advocate for finance to be allocated for these activities because we have the man power, we have the expertise, we have the will power for people to ensure that we are meeting targets.”

Further stressing on the role of the coalition, Hon Bernadette Wuyatta Songa said: “We don’t just want to form the caucus and have it lying about. We want to ensure that we become the voice of what we want to achieve,” she stressed.

The formation of the caucus marks a significant milestone in Sierra Leone’s journey toward universal health coverage, offering a coordinated platform to advocate for domestic resource mobilization in alignment with global health goals.

 

With Sierra Leone strengthening its public health infrastructure, the caucus is expected to play a key role in bridging the gap between policy commitments and budgetary action, ensuring that immunization and essential health services are adequately funded and accessible to all citizens. https://thecalabashnewspaper.com/health-alert-partners-lead-launch-of-immunization-financing-parliamentary-caucus/