Advocacy group launches 2nd phase of project to check transparency in management of COVID-19 funds

The second phase of the COVID-19 Transparency and Accountability Project, CTAP, which seeks to advocate accountability and transparency of funding, open governance, interventions and finances targeted at combating the Coronavirus has seen the light of day.

The project was launched in Yaounde Thursday March 24 during a coalition network meeting.

The second phase of the CTAP project is fronted in Cameroon by a not-for- profit organization known as Action for Development and Empowerment, ADE.
The launch in Yaounde brought together civil society organisations and media practitioners.

During the coalition meeting, participants brainstormed on ways of opening up discussions with government so as to advocate for Open Governance Partnership, OGP in the health care sector.

The meeting also aimed at setting up a multi-stakeholder database of civil society organisations and media organs whose work may have an impact on the realisation of the objectives.

The second phase which is set to run for 18 months, it should be recalled was first launched February 2021 with focus on tracking COVID-19 funds as well as primary health care services and also initiating open governance partnership.

“The second phase aims at enhancing transparency in the health sector in Cameroon and I am satisfied with the participation of the various stakeholders” ADE Founder, Ndi Nancy explained.

“Today, we had a coalition with civil society and the media whose aim was to bring out strategies that could be used to enhance transparency in the health sec- tor in Cameroon. I am very happy with the active participation of both media and civil society on the strategy we can use to enhance accountability in the health care sector” she added.

She explained that the Follow The Money, FTM Cameroon platform is a network of activists, social workers, lawyers, journalists, data analysts amongst others, created to amplify voices of marginalised communities as well as seek the participation of influencers, bloggers and mobile journalists to expand funding for the healthcare sector.

Participants at the end of the workshop mapped out several recommendations which could help in the growth of the project.

Amongst the approaches, they proposed subtle communication with government, strengthening of data collected and the creation of stakeholder dialogue.

The phase 2 of the ongoing project will focus on strengthening transparency and accountability on using public resources in target countries and building an alliance across Africa to mainstream accountable financing for healthcare.

In addition to this, the group intends emphasize that African governments need to ensure transparency and accountability in the deployment of vaccines and equitable distribution. Our work will include enhancing the COVID-19 Accountability Platform with a digital dashboard that tracks health sector resourcing and accountability approaches.