Monitoring Pro-Poor Health-Policy Success in the SADC Region

Monitoring pro-poor health policies at the regional level can support both the countries and the regional bodies themselves by identifying gaps in addressing poverty and health, strengthening the link between regions and member states, holding actors accountable to their commitments and identifying better mechanisms for data sharing, monitoring and evaluation of activities. In the area of health, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) has conducted important work in understanding how poor health and poverty coincide, are mutually reinforcing, and socially-structured by gender, age, class, ethnicity and location, demonstrated by the key health policy documents that have been facilitated by the secretariat. Yet the time lapse between the formulation of guidelines and policies and their implementation has at times been uneven. The “Poverty Reduction and Regional Integration” (PRARI) project seeks to support the development of a monitoring system to measure the contribution of regional governance in the development of pro-poor health policies in collaboration with key stakeholders in the region. This system will build on existing efforts in the region and focus on policy areas such as the social determinants of health; HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria; non-communicable diseases; maternal and child health; human resources for health; pharmaceuticals; among others. Global developments such as those related to the incoming Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will also be considered.