Parliaments can play a key role in promoting health and health equity through their representative, legislative and oversight roles, including budget oversight. To better understand and support the practical implementation of these roles, EQUINET (through University of Cape Town (UCT) and its secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) with SEAPACOH  implemented a questionnaire survey in September 2008  to explore and document the work and experiences of parliamentary committees on health.

This report presents the findings on the general progress on parliament work on health. The survey highlighted a number of areas of current focus of parliament work in health, the potential and experience of positive outcomes, and the limits and constraints to address to support further work. In the budget process parliaments have generally played a role in advocating and engaging on the Abuja commitment, with increasing budget shares to health in a majority of countries, although the target has only been met in two of those included in the survey. Legislative activity is less common, and areas that are of public health concern, such as incorporating TRIPS flexibilities or international commitments into national law are still not well known by parliaments or acted on.

Oversight and representative roles are the most frequently reported area of committee action, and parliaments have played an important role in raising debate on and profile of health issues. It appears from the evidence that parliaments can support progress in health equity by enhancing funding for prioritised areas in the budget process, by raising awareness of health issues through parliament debates, by raising public attention to prioritised concerns through media liaison, by gathering evidence and views from communities and communicating issues to communities through constituency visits, and by raising very specific questions to the executive to address.