UKaid spends £11.3m on Ghana reproductive health project
The United Kingdom Agency for International Development (UKaid) has funded the Ghana Adolescent Reproductive Health (GHARH) Project with £11.3 million since its inception in early 2014.
Mr. Moses Liyobe Nanang, the Brong-Ahafo Regional Representative of the Palladium, an International non-governmental organisation implementing the project, said when he handed over adolescent health corner medical equipment and logistics to the Brong-Ahafo Regional Health Directorate (RHD) on Wednesday in Sunyani.
The items, including diagnostic equipment, surgical instruments, infection prevention items, teaching and learning materials, furniture, games and entertainment stuff, and others like doctor’s stools, gooseneck lamps, medicine trolleys, steel bowls, rubber mackintosh, fridges, bedside screen and examination couch valued at GH¢336,000.00.
The RHD is distributing them to the 54 adolescent health corners, two in each of the eight Municipalities and 19 Districts in the Region to ensure smooth operations and effective adolescent health services delivery.
Mr. Nanang said the Project had been beneficial to the Region immensely and cited that 324,224 individuals cumulatively had benefited while 128,000 adolescents and youth of the 10 and 19 age brackets, the main targets groups had been reached.
He said Palladium had been implementing the Project through other public sector agencies-the Ghana Health Service, Ghana Education Service, National Youth Authority and National Population Council.
Mr. Nanang appealed to the GHS to continue to provide technical oversight to all the adolescent corners to ensure continuous provision of quality and responsive services to the young people in the Region.
He also asked all implementing partners of the Project as well as the Municipal and District Assemblies to endeavour to sustain if not whole, some aspects of the Project to maintain its objectives achieved and even move beyond.
Mr. Nanang said the key objectives of the project were to build the capacity of Government of Ghana partners to plan, implement and manage adolescent sexual and reproductive health (ASRH) programmes in the country.
It was also to increase access to appropriate information on ASRH, increase access to ASRH services and improve enabling environment for the delivery of ASRH services in Ghana, Mr. Nanang added.
He said all the adolescent health corners were established in health facilities and “they are designated safe spaces created to provide appropriate reproductive health information and services only to adolescents and also designed to provide adequate privacy and edutainment for adolescents who visit the facility”.
Mrs. Martha Larbi-Agyemfra, the Regional Public Health Nurse, on behalf of the Management of the RHD expressed appreciation and said the Directorate would continue to effectively monitor the operations of the corners for the items to be used for their intended purpose.
Source: GNA