The Partnership for Maternal Newborn and Child Health, the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), the World Health Organization (WHO), Countdown to 2030, the African Population and Health Research Center, and Living Goods recently concluded a three-part webinar series aimed at strengthening the capacities of parliamentary staff in sub-Saharan Africa to support engagement with women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health.

The series aimed to:

• Introduce parliamentary staff to key issues and challenges related to WCAH, with a focus on accessing and understanding relevant data;
• Provide parliamentary staff with budget training to analyze budgets with a WCAH lens;
• Enhance legislative drafting capacities to ensure legislation across sectors supports access to health for WCA.

Attended by 120 participants, the webinars provided critical information and a space to exchange information across countries. IPU and PMNCH have been collaborating in providing support to national parliaments to strengthen action on health and improve access to health for women, children and adolescents. Recently they launched a new handbook providing an action-oriented framework for parliamentarians to understand and address health challenges, develop and finance evidence-based policy solutions, and develop institutional oversight, public engagement, and strong implementation mechanisms.

Strengthening parliamentary institutions requires going beyond developing the capacities of parliamentarians. An important aspect is to enhance the institutional memory of parliament in order to address the challenge of skills loss at election times, especially in countries with a high turnover of parliamentarians. This webinar series focused on capacitating parliamentary staff who as the secretariat are the potential resource for continuity and sustainable change in a parliament.