EU to launch €52m maternal health programme in Ghana

The European Union (EU) will launch a €52 million Maternal Health Support Programme in Ghana to help improve maternal care.

A statement from the European Commission to Ghana News Agency on Monday said the programme would also increase emergency obstetric and new born care and through measures of family planning,

It said the EU funding was designed to help ensure that about 80 per cent of mothers  were  attended to by a trained health worker while giving birth and to improve the overall support during pregnancy and in the postnatal period by 2015.

The programme would also help increase the knowledge and use of family planning methods, support increase access to basic emergency obstetric and neonatal care in Ghana to 60 per cent by 2015.

The statement said through the programmes, the EU would support Ghana to reach its goal of reducing maternal mortality to 185 per 100,000 live births (2008: 451 per 100,000)

It said the second programme, the “EU Ghana Decentralisation Support Programme,” which involves €45 million, would help to strengthen decentralized authorities in providing services such as water, sanitation and roads.

Mr Andris Piebalgs, the EU Commissioner who is expected to arrive in Ghana on Tuesday, October 30 is expected to launch the programmes and also attend the High Level Forum on Sustainable Energy, organized by the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS).

Mr Piebalgs would also hold bilateral meetings with some government officials, the Ministers of Health; Local Government and Rural Development and representatives of Civil Society Organisations.

Source: GNA