From July 22 to 24, in Koudougou, five Burkinabe parliamentarians attended a training course on policies, programs, commitments, and legal instruments in sexual and reproductive health and rights and family planning (SRHR/FP). The aim of this training was to make these elected officials more effective in their own questioning of authorities and decision-makers during parliamentary sessions, through monitoring and following up on government action. This workshop, organized by a consortium of four civil society organizations— GASCODE, RAJS/BF, FONDATION RAMA, and BURCASO—is part of the Burkinbiwili project, launched in November 2019. This project aims to contribute to the implementation of political commitments and programs in Sexual and Reproductive Health for Adolescents and Young People (SSRAJ). It consists of promoting the consideration of the needs of all adolescents and young people in Burkina Faso and covers five regions (the Center, the Center-West, the Central Plateau, the Hauts-Bassins, and the Sahel region). Five (5) parliamentarians benefited from capacity building on the various existing legal instruments and national and international commitments made by Burkina Faso. This was an opportunity for them to understand the issues related to adolescent and youth SRHR (ASRHR), but also the role they can and must play in ensuring that the executive branch effectively respects its commitments. The parliamentarians expressed their interest in participating, together with civil society partner organizations, in monitoring the commitments. In particular, they took up reference commitment monitoring tools: the Scorecard and the Motion Tracker. During the training, expectations were also formulated with regard to parliamentarians. Among these expectations, the consortium notes, in particular, the monitoring of the Burkinabe government's commitment to increase the budget allocated to family planning by 10% each year. In addition, members of parliament were asked to participate in the reporting and promotion of the results of social audits carried out at the beginning of the project. These audits revealed cases of violations of the sexual and reproductive health rights of adolescents and young people, including access to family planning services. In response to these expectations, parliamentarians expressed their support for the project and assured their full involvement in activities to call on political authorities to respect their commitments to SRHR/FP.
