Ghana has launched a comprehensive Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health and Nutrition (RMNCAH+N) Strategic Plan aimed at ensuring increased and equitable access to high quality RMNCAH+N services for all by 2030. The five-year RMNCAH+N prioritized strategic framework provides strategic direction for health and relevant non-health stakeholders towards ending preventable deaths of women, newborns, children, and adolescents and ensuring their health and wellbeing It is also aligned with the Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s, and Adolescents’ Health (2016 – 2030). In Ghana, routine health system reporting is done through a district information management system (DHIMS2). Improving the quality of data collected through DHIMS2 is an ongoing effort; another key area identified as needing strengthening is that of population-at-risk estimates (denominators) to produce sub-national RMNACH+N and other health system indicators at district and sub-district levels. This will be one important aspect of the collaboration with Ghana. The GFF partnership in Ghana is supporting the implementation of a roadmap for Universal Health Coverage (UHC) through the development of a Prioritized Operational Plan and Costing (POP-C) that serves as Ghana’s investment case. The investment case will be tailored to national priorities, with an associated national monitoring, learning and evaluation (MLE) framework in which RMNCAH+N is prominent. The Ghana Health Service, which is responsible for reporting health sector indicators to the Ministry of Health, is leading the development of the MLE framework.

Achievements for 2020-2022

• Capacity building workshop to improve data quality and utilization, reporting and strengthening monitoring & evaluation structures at the district levels (Ga South and Nzema East Districts).
• 2022 Countdown GFF Multi-Country Analysis Workshop in Nairobi, Kenya, to strengthen the skills of country teams in the analysis of health facilities and related national and subnational data, develop different ways of communicating results, and support country analysts in developing national and subnational estimates for key RMNCAH and nutrition indicators.
• Model annual reports (2021).
• Journal articles including:

  • Effect of National Immunisation Campaigns with Oral Polio Vaccine on All-Cause Mortality in Children in Rural Northern Ghana: 20 Years of Demographic Surveillance Cohort Data

  • Delineating natural catchment health districts with routinely collected health data from women’s travel to give birth in Ghana

  • Distance is “a big problem”: a geographic analysis of reported and modelled proximity to maternal health services in Ghana

• Population Modelling and Mapping for Health workshop
• Geospatial Data (QGIS) Training for Health Management Information Officers and ICT managers to improve capacity in data analysis for health service delivery and provide evidence-based recommendations for policy interventions.

Planned research for 2023-2025

The Ghana country collaboration under CD2030 Phase III is focusing on:

• Producing an analytical report detailing progress and performance towards national and international targets for key indicators at national and district levels, focusing on recent coverage, trends, inequalities, geospatial analysis and long-term projections using multiple data sources i.e., DHIMS2, EmONC, DHS, death audits
• Improving population estimates for immunization coverages: Analytical comparison of DHIS, routine coverage denominator and gridded population (Census and HDSS).
• Health financing profile of Ghana from 2000 to date with a focus on Reproductive health and Maternal conditions using data from the World Data bank and Ghana Ministry of Health.

• A policy brief and a peer-reviewed journal article on critical workshop topics.
• Routine annual progress reports incorporating new methodologies and corresponding estimates.
• Contributions to performance-based management in the context of the MLE framework of the universal healthcare roadmap.
• Participation in the Urban Health Project 

In addition, Akua Amponsaa Obeng from the University of Ghana was selected as a Countdown Fellow for 2023.