Economic and Social Empowerment
of Rural Communities (ESERC)

PATHS2 Project
Primary Health System strengthening Project funded by Partnership for Transforming Health System II (PATHS2) Project: 1^st May 2013 – ³¹st May 2016:

ESERC/PATHS2 Voice and Accountability (V&A) work focused on encouraging citizens to voice their experiences of, and concerns with health services, and to place pressure through effective advocacy on government to be more responsive and accountable in their delivery.

PATHS2 work stream are:
1. The development of facility Health Committees as a mechanism to promote citizen voice and enable greater accountability of government and health providers to service users.
2. Advocate initiatives to pressure government to improve service delivery
3. Participatory policy/strategy development and resources tracking to improve government responsiveness and the allocation and expenditure of health sector resources.

ESERC assignment focused on the first work stream.
PATHS2 focused on strengthening the health system and health service delivery in order to reduce maternal and neo-natal mortality and contribute in achieving MDGs 4&5

Evidence has shown that FHC work is contributing significantly to improve service delivery as such, a scale up of the FHCs within the PATHS2 supported services delivery sites is now required.

These Committees have three broad operational areas namely;
• Improve health Facility and facility performance
• Involve the community members they are representing in decision making as regards to their health facility.
• Increase community access to health facilities and mobilize community members for better health.

ESERC project tied to strengthening FHCs focused on providing trainings and mentorship to FHCs.
ESERC implemented this project in 29 communities in 5 Local Government Areas of Enugu State, namely:
1. Igboeze North LGA
2. Igboeze South LGA
3. Isi-Uzor LGA
4. Udi LGA
5. Nkanu East East

Other activities carried out by ESERC included:
1. Training of Facility Health Committees in each community
2. Intensive monthly mentoring support spanning a 12 month period for each FHC
3. Conducting quarterly FHC self-assessment
4. Quarterly FHC alliance/experience sharing meetings at LGA levels
5. Quarterly community networking events
6. Bi-monthly review meeting/planning meetings with PATHS2
7. Bi-annual administration of community score card
8. Annual State-wide meeting with government stakeholders.
9. Provide support to ensure the FHCs are able to effectively oversee the
Drug Revolving Fund/Sustainable Drug Supply System (DRF/SDSS).

Achievements:
• ESERC constituted, trained and mentored 29 FHCs across the 5 LGAs
• A lot of achievements were recorded by the FHCs such as:
- mobilization of resources to carry out minor repairs in their health facilities.
- ensured health workers were always on duty and reduced absenteeism of health workers.
- DRF/SDSS were effectively utilized
- Carried out series of advocacy visits to undertake to minor projects in their health facilities
- The government became sensitive to problems of the communities etc