Twenty-two districts in the Northern Region are to benefit from a $12 million health project funded by the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) and United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).
It is under the Phase II Comprehensive Community-Based Primary Health Care Strengthening Project (CHPS), to improve the quality of maternal, newborn, child health services in the region, as well as enhancing community engagement.
Fifteen of the project will be implemented in the Upper East Region, while the remaining seven will be executed in the North-East Region, with UNICEF been KOICA's implementing partner providing $3.5 million out of the overall total cost.
To this end, the Country Director for KOICA, Mr Moo Heon Kong and the Representative of UNICEF-Ghana, Ms Anne-Claire Dufay, yesterday signed a Memorandum of Understanding to collaborate in the implementation of the project.
Mr Kong said the project would span from 2022 to 2027 as a continuation of the Government of Korea's pledged to support the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) in the country.
He explained that, the project would also aim to improve service delivery at the community level through the capacity building of Community Health Officer.
He was hopeful the project would empower the existing community health volunteers to fulfill their role as community health promotional agents, through enhanced training, appropriate incentive and supervision.
"Theproject also aims to enhance and widen the coverage of the community tricycle ambulance which enables community members to transport urgent cases such as emergency delivery, from the community to the next point of referral using the emergency transport system.
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For the health service strengthening, the project will equip CHPS zones, health centres, district and regional hospitals with various equipment, train doctors and midwives to improve delivery services," Mr Kong said.
He said for the purpose of health system strengthening, the overall supervision, and governance in the aspect of leadership and management would also be enhanced through capacity building of personnel in the sub district of the health officers.
Ms Dufay said, UNICEF is also providing tangible platform for the youth to enhance their knowledge in entrepreneurship,despites their numerous contributions in the health sectors.
She said, her outfit had strengthening their collaboration with government to improve development in various communities in the country.
"We have built a strong relational with the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) which had yielded several positive results, and am hopeful the collaboration between KOICA and UNICEF is on the right direction to enhance healthcare delivery in the country," she said
