SRHR Advocacy in South Sudan

South Sudanese women find themselves in the middle of a tug of war between traditional, militarised and medicalised views on their sexual health in addition to lack of access to SRHR services. SRHR issues are not well reflected in the National Health Policy, meaning there is a need for coordinated SRHR advocacy actions to advance a robust national response.

AHI is currently implementing a project named “Evidence based SRHR Advocacy in South Sudan” which will develop evidence-based advocacy tools and conduct consultative meetings with SRHR experts to engage key policy makers. Key components of the project include:

• The establishment of a SRHR Coalition which will play a key role in shifting the national SRHR response from a predominantly behavioural approach to a transformative approach focusing on access to affordable and quality SRHR services.

• Production of a national scorecard for SRHR to drive local investment in SRHR issues by providing local health actors with a SRHR services management tool, by comparing performance to benchmarks and by committing state health units to annual reporting.

• Developing a SRHR catalytic framework for CSOs and policy makers to nurture best practice and learning across the country and to boost advocacy effectiveness amongst small-to-medium sized CSOs. This will lead to effective community based strategies in improving access and utilisation of comprehensive SRHR services.

• Conducting strategic advocacy meetings with state health units, policy makers at state and national level, representatives of women’s associations and youth led CSOs for networking, lobbying and sharing best practices and evidences for advocacy and resource mobilization efforts to best amplify voices of underserved communities.

More details on this project can be found here as we progress in its implementation.