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This issue of COPASAH Communique has an exclusive focus on the practice of Social Accountability in Sub Saharan Africa. You will read of different initiatives primarily from Uganda and from Zimbabwe. They highlight different arenas of action – from the settlement community to the Parliament, and different methods through which citizen's interact with their health service providers and policy makers including the use of more well-known methods like Score Cards and Participatory Action Research (PAR) and the use of emerging methods like photo-documentation. As practitioners we are all certain that citizen feedback on programming is essential to increase ownership as well as utilisation of health services. Social accountability practices have been known to show that they bring the users and providers closer together to plan and implement better services. In addition these practices build a sense of autonomy and empowerment within otherwise poor and disempowered communities.
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