The 2016 West Africa Regional Caucus meeting at the fourth Women Deliver with the theme advancing the health and productivity of women and girls in West Africa, aimed to identify opportunities for collaboration, discuss advocacy priorities and strategies for increased commitment to the health and well-being of girls and women in the region. With support from PATH, HACEY Health Initiative brought together diverse stakeholders from the sub-region to share perspectives on major priorities and opportunities for joined up working in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) pertaining to women and girls.

1. 4TH GLOBAL CONFERENCE
COPENHAGEN, DENMARK
16 – 19 MAY, 2016
REPORT

2. T
he 2016 West Africa Regional Caucus meetng at the fourth
Women Deliver with the theme advancing the health and
productivity of women and girls in West Africa, aimed
to identify opportunities for collaboration, discuss advocacy
priorities and strategies for increased commitment to the health
and wellbeing of girls and women in the region.
With support from PATH, HACEY Health Initiative brought
together diverse stakeholders from the sub-region to share
perspectives on major priorities and opportunities for joined up
working in the implementation of the Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs) pertaining to women and girls.
Different perspectives on improving the health and productivity
of females in the region were brought to fore through speeches,
a panel session and a question and answers session. Focus
was made on political will, education, health literacy and
policy implementation. Referrals were also made to existing
global and regional policy mechanisms such as the Sustainable
Development Goals, the Global strategy for Women’s, Children’s
and Adolescent Health (2016- 2030) and the African Union’s
Agenda 2063 as frameworks that provide opportunities for every
stakeholder to demand for accountability on the health and
rights of women and girls in the region.
A major highlight of the meeting was the panel discussion
which focussed on “leveraging cross sectoral partnership to
advance the health and productivity of women and girls across
West Africa”. Panellist included a parliamentarian from Ghana;
Honourable William Sabi, A non profit leader; Theresa Effa –
Country Coordinator of Champions for Change and Lena Hothes,
First Secretary on Health, Danish Embassy in Ghana.
Overview

3. T
he West Africa Regional Caucus Meeting was held on the 19th
of May, 2016 at the Bella Center in Copenhagen Denmark from
10:30am to 12:00 noon. It was well attended by high level stake-
holders from nine West African countries comprising of Ministers, Par-
liamentarians, Heads of regional partnerships, policy makers and young
people.
The keynote address was made by The Executive Governor of Ondo
State, Nigeria represented by the Honourable Commissioner of Health
of the State. The highlight of his address was the impactful story of the
State’s “ABIYE” program which had helped reduce maternal deaths by
more than half in the state.
The opening remark during the meeting was made by the President and
Founder of Wellbeing Foundaton, Mrs Toyin Saraki. She said
“Political will can help us a lot in achieving our desired goal of ensuring
that pregnancy is not a death sentence and we can do that in West
Africa”.
Her remark was followed by a panel discussion which focussed on “le-
veraging cross sectoral partnership to advance the health and productiv-
ity of women and girls across West Africa”. Panellist included a parlia-
mentarian from Ghana; Honourable William Sabi, A non profit leader;
Theresa Effa – Country Coordinator of Champions for Change and Lena
Hothes, First Secretary on Health, Danish Embassy in Ghana.
West Africa Regional Caucus Meeting
Cross section of partcipants

4. T
he opening remark during the meeting was made by the Pres-
ident and Founder of Wellbeing Foundaton, Mrs Toyin Saraki.
She said
“Political will can help us a lot in achieving our desired goal of en-
suring that pregnancy is not a death sentence and we can do that in
West Africa”.
Her remark was followed by a panel discussion which focussed on
“leveraging cross sectoral partnership to advance the health and
productivity of women and girls across West Africa”. Panellist included
a parliamentarian from Ghana; Honourable William Sabi, A non profit
leader; Theresa Effa – Country Coordinator of Champions for Change
and Lena Hothes, First Secretary on Health, Danish Embassy in Ghana.
Major Outcome of the Caucus Meeting
Cross section of partcipants

5. Commitments
A
commitment letter with specific
actions for stakeholders was signed
by 90% of participant (see annex
material for copy of call to action)
In addition to the signing of the commit-
ment letter, Her Excellency Toyin Saraki,
Founder of the Wellbeing Foundation,
Keynote Speaker at the meeting and wife
of the Nigerian Senate President, stated
her continued commitment and focus on
the achievement of SDG 3 for health and
wellbeing for all ages and SDG 5 for gender
equality and equity. Her Excellency also
committed to holding the Nigerian govern-
ment to the promise of providing 10,000
Primary Health Care Centres and called
for governments to endeavour to register
every pregnant woman.
Also, she made a call to participant most
especially policy makers, parliamentari-
ans and government representatives to
commit to 12 investments opportunities to
improve maternal, newborn and adoles-
cent health in the region. These include:
1. Improve maternal and newborn health
and nutrition since health cannot be
measured without the right nutrition
2. Meet demand for modern contracep-
tion and reproductive health.
3. Respect, protect and fulfill, sexual
health and rights; bringing the discus-
sion on sexual health into the open
domain.
4. Ensure access to comprehensive health
services.
5. Dramatically Reduce sexual based
violence and harmful practices which
includes FGM
6. Ensure Equitable and quality education
at all levels
7. Boost women’s economic empower-
ment
8. Strengthen women’s political participa-
tion and decision making power
9. Accelerate access to resources i.e land,
clean water and sanitation
10. Invest in women to tackle climate
change and conserve the environment
11. Improve data and accountability for
girls, women and everyone. registering
every pregnant woman
12. Build Sustainable financing and partner-
ships for girls and women
Major Outcome of the Caucus Meeting
Mrs. Toyin Saraki deliverying her speech

6. Major Outcome of the Caucus Meeting
Best Practice on improving
maternal and child health
shared at the meeting
Best practice on ways to effectively
implement programmes aimed at
improving maternal health across the
region was shared by the Governor of
Ondo State, Nigeria, represented by
the Commissioner for Health, Dr Ade-
dayo Adeyanju. The commissioner
gave a presentation on the Challeng-
es and opportunities for stakeholders
to deliver on RMNCAH in West Africa
using the novel Safe Motherhood
project implemented in Ondo State,
South West Nigeria called “Abiye”.
He itemized the characteristic of
the region, noting that West Africa
though full of potential and oppor-
tunities to improve the health and
wellbeing of women and girls is
plagued with high maternal mor-
tality. He emphasized the need for
political will in the development and
implementation of impactful inter-
ventions, stating that with political
will in the mix, there will definitely be
a way to improve the lives of women
and children in the region. Political
will, therefore makes it easy to yield
results.
He further stated that political will
enabled the Abiye program to be put
in place. The success of this interven-
tion over the last 6 years, has led to a
sharp reduction of maternal mortality
in the State. From 745 per 100, 000
live births in 2009 to 106 per 100,000
live births in 2015 and with about
14,802 of pregnant women referred
in the first 2 years of implementation;
this laudable achievement indicates
that the MDGs, though seeming-
ly unreachable was achieved in a
South-western state Of Nigeria.
Dr Adedayo Adeyanju Commissioner for Health representing the
Governor of Ondo State,Nigeria deliverying his speech
Cross section of partcipants

7. Major Outcome of the Caucus Meeting
Major strategies employed in the safe motherhood pro-
gram include;
• Improved skilled attendants using health rangers/community exten-
sion workers to track pregnant women in the community and link
them to skilled attendants;
• Countered the delays that contribute to maternal mortality by plac-
ing pregnant women in call user groups with health rangers;
• Confidential Enquiry into Maternal death was put in place and made
mandatory in the state to lay the foundation for getting data for the
recording of the death of every pregnant woman.
• Partnership between Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs) and the
Safe Motherhood (Abiye) intervention: Cash incentives were given
to TBAs for every patient referred to the hospitals. The TBAs were
empowered with other career choices and soft loans. Thereby their
profession as TBAs became self exiting.
• Legal element was introduced to aid implementation. A law was
enacted to penalise any TBA who ventured into taking a delivery of
a baby that led to either the death of the mother or the baby. Other
strategies employed include; seamless supply of vaccines, multi-sec-
toral approach to Adolescent health and health information.

8. Future Joint Advocacy Efforts
FUTURE JOINT ADVOCACY EFFORTS
• Establishment of a regional platform for sharing of best practices
online hosted on the HACEY micro site. This platform will be used
to exchange knowledge and build capacity of stakeholders across
sectors for collective advocacy.
• Explore the possibility of creating a regional alliance focused on
advancing the maternal and sexual and reproductive health and
right of women and girls in West Africa. This alliance will consist of
members from private sector, civil society organisation and govern-
ment agencies.
COMPELLING QUOTES
“Education is intrinsically linked to health for all members of the family
from birth to childhoods to adolescents to motherhood and hopefully
old age. Heath literacy thus is the difference between life and death for
everyone on earth most importantly to Africans.” – HE Toyin Saraki
“Political will can help us a lot in achieving our desired goal in West
Africa such that pregnancy is not a death sentence for women” – Dr
Adedayo Adeyanju
Partnership is key but no partnership without youth organisations and
no partnership without youth professionals – Joanne Bewa
Development partners need to study government programs and design
their interventions in line with that for harmonisation, accountability
and continuity of actions aimed at improving health outcomes of wom-
en and girls– William Sabi
“We need to explore proper health insurance so as to make people
more health seeking instead of illness treating. It’s cheaper, more
effective and it keeps your population well.” - William Sabi
“Getting involved in the policy development is key rather than just
being the beneficiaries to ensure relevant aspects for each constituency
are taken into consideration” – Paul Ojajuni
“CSO need to harness their voices, leverage on their resources and skills
to provide a common platform and speak with one voice to address the
needs that they want their governments to address regarding improv-
ing maternal health across West Africa” – Theresa Effa

9. Caucus Communications
CAUCUS COMMUNICATIONS
Facebook updates and Tweets were sent out using
#WAfricaWD.
Press releases from national and regional journal-
ists were also developed
Interviews of Keynote speakers and caucus orga-
nizers were conducted by Daily Trust Newspaper,
Nigeria
AFTER-ACTION PLANS:
• Caucus meeting materials have been inter-
preted for the francophone countries.
• We hope to communicate with all participants
of the caucus meeting at least 3 times in
the next 6 months with report of the caucus
meeting, outcome documents and outcome
of meeting with major stakeholders from the
region.
• We will hold meetings with the West African
Civil Society Forum, West African Civil Society
Institute, Private Sector Health Alliance of
Nigeria and International Youth Alliance for
Family Planning to explore the possibility of
creating a regional alliance focused on ad-
vancing maternal and sexual and reproductive
health of women and girls in West Africa.

10. Event in Numbers
113 people
Representing 8 West African countries
5 donor Agencies
4 members of parliament
7 private sector companies’ representatives
94 delegates signed call to action to advance
the maternal and reproductive health of
women and girls in West Africa