Modou
Njie, the director of Health Promotion over the weekend emphasised that all
sectors should consider health in the implementation of policies and
strategies.
Njie
who was speaking at NaNA in a two day Sectoral Policy Review for implementation
of health in all policies, said if the sectors are developing their policies or
strategies, they should not forget about health.
“We
had the first engagement in 2015, where we brought about technicians,
politicians and other decision makers to brief them of the outcome of the
helfin declaration on health policies in 2013, focusing on health in all
policies,” Njie stated.
He
further indicated that the whole idea is for every sector to ensure that they
talk about health, put health in their policies and allocate adequate funds to
the health sector. He added that with that they can go above the Abuja 15%
declaration of budget allocation for the health sector.
“We
want to inform other sectors that whatever they do with their budget, will have
huge impact to the health and distribution of health in the country,” he said.
Momodou
Gassama, the representative of World Health Organisation (WHO) dwelt on the
importance of the review, stating that it’s to chart the way for better health
in the country for the present and future generation.
He
added that health is very fundamental in “whatever we do in our development
agenda,” while emphasising that no development can take place without health.
“Health
is beyond health because whatever we do will impact on health, whether directly
or indirectly.”
He
expounded that the health sector will change its gears in term of mobilising
the necessary resources, strategies and capacities to champion health in all
other sectors, in order to reinforce what they are doing.
Alpha
Bah, representative of the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education pointed
out that “if we take a look at the composition of the Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs), we will realise that in each sector, one cross cutting issue is
health.”
“In
our policy, we have the school health, which we talk about health facilities
and health service delivery related to our school system,” he further pointed.
