To Improve Citizens’ Health Seeking Behavior, Enable Transparency, Participation, and Accountability (TPA) in Health Governance: A Report on PRO-Health TPA-Enabled Health Units Workshop Series

This G-Watch report shares the highlights from the workshop series that aimed to enable health units through Transparency-Participation-Accountability (TPA) to strengthen health and education and promotion. The workshop convened barangay-level health stakeholders, including barangay officials, Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) officials, community health personnel and local civil society groups to form a TPA for health core group that now help push for improved health service delivery in their barangay. In particular, with local G-Watch/ PRO-Health core groups, these barangay-level health stakeholders are spearheading the pilot-testing of a feedback mechanism, a citizen charter and conduct of health education and promotion activities in their health units.

Covering 65 barangays in eight localities all over the country, the workshop series is another part of advancing PRO-Health’s reform agenda in light of its monitoring findings. In particular, it addresses the lack of functioning feedback mechanism in health units and the weak information, education and communication efforts of health units to address the low level awareness and weak health-seeking behavior of citizens. TPA addresses these gaps and concerns by turning citizens and communities from mere recipients and clients into partners and leaders who help solve problems and set the agenda.