The significance of harnessing data for effective policy-making decision in the healthcare delivery system has been re-echoed during this year’s senior civil servants’ workshop on healthcare administration in Nigeria.
The 3-day training, which drew 30 participants from across the country, was organised by the Development Research and Project Centre, dRPC, in collaboration with the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, NIPPS.
The theme of this year’s annual workshop was, ‘Using Data for Effective Child and Family Health Policy-making and Financing’.
DAILY NIGERIAN gathered that the training was a brainchild of dRPC, a leading NGO under the Partnership for Advocacy in Child and Family Health at Scale, PACFaH@Scale that aims to strengthen the capacities of indigenous CSO to hold policy decision-makers accountable in terms of to their financial commitments to the people.
While declaring the workshop open, the acting Director General of the NIPPS, Jonathan Juma, lauded the activities of the dRPC, saying that the NGO is a worthy ambassador and advocate for an improved healthcare delivery and education in the country.
According to him, NIPPS regards dRPC as one of the most reputable and credible NGOs in the country that is concerned with bridging the gap between healthcare policymakers, implementers and the end-users.
However, Mr Juma decried how evidence-based policymaking has been a major challenge over the years.
He, therefore, urged the participants to take advantage of the rare opportunity to acquire necessary knowledge and skills that would impact on child and family health policy-making and financing in the country.
“The organisers have high expectations that not only will your capacity be built but the outcome of this 3-day workshop will come up with action-oriented recommendations for effective health policy making and financing,” he said.
Earlier in her welcome address, the Country Director of the dRPC, Judith-Ann Walker Said the 3-day ‘impactful’ capacity-building training was aimed at building champions within the government bureaucracy.
She, therefore, craved for open-mindedness in addressing Nigerian’s health challenges.
Also speaking, the Senior Technical Advisor to PACFaH@scale, Emmanuel Abanida, said the training was organised in order to bridge a gap in the utilization of pieces of evidence that are generated by the duty-bearers to inform or to programme actions so that we can have better results.
“The training is put together to have a synthesis of the high government officials, policy-making arms of government, senior civil servant, civil society organization and people that are using data to inform decisions.
“Basically, this training is to bridge the gap between pieces of evidence that are generated and how they are used.
“There are a lot of data out there but the credibility of these data is the issue. Therefore, at the end of this training, participants will have the opportunity to be able to filter data that are really key to their programme objectives,” Mr Abanida emphasised.
