Foro de la Sociedad Civil en Salud (ForoSalud)

During 2004, a series of capacity building workshops were held in 12 of the 24 regions of Perú to explain issues such as human rights, the right to health, the rights contained in Peruvian law, and how people have a right to participate in decisions that affect them. This was followed by a second wave of capacity building, this time with the national directorate of ForoSalud and the 12 regional ForoSalud networks, in preparation for the development of national and regional health policy proposals that would use a "bottom-up" approach. This capacity building process involved training ForoSalud on participatory methodologies to ensure that local health issues would be identified by the local people. Successive capacity building workshops focused on the potential of participation in the realisation of people's right to health and on building workshop participants' capacity to participate in spaces such as Regional Health Councils. People received training on topics such as how policies are constructed, the identification of different groups involved in policy development and implementation, and the power relations that exist within the process.

Health, Rights.

Prior to beginning their advocacy work, ForoSalud and their partners recognised that citizens, health workers, and policy makers within the Peruvian health system had a poor understanding of human rights and the right to health. Discrimination on grounds such as ethnicity, socio-economic status, sex, race, and citizenship in access to health services also occurred. Additionally, ForoSalud found that health workers and policy makers were reluctant to make the institutional shift from a process of informing and consulting people to one which would allow peoples' participation in health policy development.

As a result of ForoSalud's capacity building process, health policy proposals have been constructed with the participation of a wide range of local health organisations, and openly discussed at regional and national forums, thus ensuring that citizen's policy proposals are on the regional and national health agenda.