Global Health

OVERVIEW

USAID is the largest bilateral donor in Ghana’s health sector, providing approximately $105 million for health in 2023. USAID partners with the government, civil society, academia, other development organizations and the private sector to deliver high-quality, affordable health services to improve and save lives, in line with Ghana’s vision of Universal Health Coverage. This partnership has contributed to improving Ghana’s health outcomes for close to five decades. However, several challenges persist. Maternal, newborn and child mortality ratios continue to be of concern, while reproductive and adolescent health services require improvement. Additionally, healthcare service coverage needs to become more equitable to ensure access for all, including the most vulnerable.

PROGRAMMATIC FOCUS AND ACHIEVEMENTS TO DATE

REPRODUCTIVE, MATERNAL, NEWBORN AND CHILD HEALTH, ANDNUTRITION

• Donating maternal, newborn, and child health equipment to health facilities across the country. Between January 2023 and July 2024, USAID provided 2 million U.S. dollars worth of equipment including delivery sets, newborn resuscitation equipment, oxygen canisters, and phototherapy machines.
• Procuring family planning (FP) commodities including $4 million worth of condoms, implants, injections, pills, intrauterine devices, and more, meeting approximately 48 percent of Ghana’s FP needs, while educating over 5,500 individuals on sexual and reproductive health. In fishing communities where unintended pregnancies are prevalent, USAID provided FP services to over 3,000 people.
• Training health workers to deliver essential maternal and newborn nutrition education, reaching 3,464 health workers and benefitting 173,447 children and 64,025 pregnant women.

GLOBAL HEALTH SECURITY

• Preventing diseases like anthrax and rabies by donating 100,000 animal vaccines and launching a national anti-rabies awareness campaign in 85 districts across 8 regions.
• Training officers from the Veterinary Service Division, Wildlife Division, and National Blood Service in the Upper East, Northern, Eastern, and Ashanti Regions on risk communication and community engagement for zoonotic diseases.
• Facilitating professional development for lab, biosafety, and surveillance officers to support, prevent, detect, and respond to emerging infectious disease threats, reaching 250 officers.

U.S. PRESIDENT’S MALARIA INITIATIVE AND U.S. PRESIDENT’S EMERGENCY PLAN FOR AIDS RELIEF

• Preventing and treating malaria especially among vulnerable groups such as pregnant women and children under five years old by procuring 4.5 million bednets and rapid diagnostic tests, facilitating indoor residual spraying, and training healthcare professionals.
• Supporting treatment, counseling, and HIV education campaigns in the Western, Western North and Ahafo Regions by donating 5,400 pre-exposure prophylaxis treatment doses and testing 4,443 individuals for HIV.
• Collaborating with stakeholders including the Ghana AIDS Commission, the Ghana Health Service, National AIDS/STI Control Programme, and civil society organizations to realize Ghana’s HIV and AIDS Strategic Plan 2021–2025.

GENDER, SOCIAL PROTECTION AND VULNERABLE GROUPS

• Connecting at-risk children to foster care case managers and integrated social services, reaching 64,791 children.
• Facilitating online and classroom certificate training for 60 social welfare workers.
• Training frontline health staff to include social welfare activities in their regular health services and make proper referrals to state agencies. So far, 630 staff members have been trained.
• Educating and empowering women’s Voluntary Savings and Loan Association groups. The 600 groups engaged so far have saved $200,000 (3.2 million Ghana Cedis).
• Broadcasting gender equity and equality, and positive health messages through mass media and “edutainment” initiatives using popular youth television series such as “You Only Live Once,” and “Lucky Trip.”
• Supporting women’s representation on Community Health Management Committees in USAID-supported districts, increasing the numbers from 28 percent to 44 percent. The committees support efforts to address gender-based service delivery gaps.
• Training and supporting anti-gender based violence (GBV) ambassadors who have so far educated 30,294 persons on what GBV is, how to report suspected cases, and care for survivors.
• Providing COVID-19 vaccines to vulnerable and socially marginalized populations including 22,257 people from Fulbe communities; across 8 regions.

PHARMACEUTICALS AND OXYGEN

• Providing life-saving oxygen equipment and training health workers to safely administer oxygen to patients, catering for 30 percent of Ghana’s medical oxygen requirements.
• Supporting Ghana’s Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) laboratory to become the first World Health Organization-prequalified (WHO PQ) national quality control laboratory in West Africa. This makes Ghana’s FDA a key international player in the testing and verification of finished pharmaceutical products and a regional center of excellence to train other labs in West Africa.

CROSS-CUTTING

• Partnering with the Ministry of Health, WHO and UNICEF, to revise the National Healthcare Quality Strategy, harmonizing quality management efforts at all levels of implementation.

OBJECTIVES IN 2024

• Support 65 Networks of Practice across six regions (Northern, Upper East, Upper West, North East, Savannah and Western) to improve primary health services through integrated health programming. These will constitute some of Ghana’s first operational Networks of Practice and will expand quality improvement activities and outcomes in health facilities.
• Improve health commodity availability for public health programs through direct procurement and delivery of malaria, FP and HIV commodities.
• Accelerate progress toward HIV/AIDS epidemic control in the Western, Western North, and Ahafo Regions by improving access to HIV prevention and treatment services and ensuring continuity of care.
• Support Ghana's malaria elimination strategy to reduce incidence and mortality by expanding malaria prevention efforts.
• Promote nurturing care through early childhood development, reunifying separated children with families, providing inclusive services for children with disabilities, and strengthening the alternative family-based care system (foster care).
• Expand access to quality family planning information and services for all persons of reproductive age including adolescents, girls and young women.
• Improve the capacity of local pharmaceutical manufacturers to achieve WHO PQ by producing quality, safe, and efficacious medicines.
• Improve multi sectoral coordination of nutrition interventions in districts with high food insecurity and multidimensional poverty.
• Strengthen the regulatory capacity of Ghana’s FDA to maintain WHO PQ for its laboratory, conduct risk based post marketing surveillance and ensure good manufacturing practices by pharmaceutical manufacturers.
• Strengthen community engagement and accountability through community action planning, activities that promote behavior change, and scorecard assessments to empower communities to demand quality services.
• Strengthen systems to implement appropriate family-based care for children to protect children from violence, exploitation, abuse and neglect.