Case Study- Eswatini: Government leadership in ensuring citizen feedback on health

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Eastern and Southern Africa Region (ESAR) Programme Monitoring and Response (PMR) Initiative is developing Eswatini’s first-ever subnational health dashboards. These display the status of important health indicators, such as those related to nutrition, immunization, and antenatal care, which are generated by near real-time monitoring (NRTM) of health facility data. The key focus of the initiative is strengthening the newly piloted electronic health Client Management Information System (CMIS) to generate reliable and quality real-time data, with staff capacity-building for the use of that data for planning and monitoring health interventions. UNICEF Eswatini has also introduced an SMS-based citizen engagement platform, U-Report, to generate feedback from health facility clients and to promote public health messages. Engagement with the Government of Eswatini proved to be a critical first step in introducing U-Report, followed by explaining how the platform could be used as a health system strengthening platform in order to gain the trust and understanding of health workers.