Ghana says health funds from development partners dwindling
The financial commitment from Development Partners in the country’s health is gradually dwindling and this is affecting work in some projects embarked by Ghana’s Ministry of Health.
The reason for the decline in the financial commitment has been given as “Ghana is now a middle income country” and this is besides the fact that it is now an oil producing country, said Dr Afisha Zakariah, Director of Policy Planning Monitoring and Evaluation, Ministry of Health.
Speaking to the Ghana News Agency after the signing of Aide Memoire between the Ministry of Health and its Development Partners after a one week health summit held in Accra, she said though some of the partners have signed a five-year commitment plan, the Ministry was also working hard to make use of its internally generated funds.
“We are channeling our internal funds to support our priority areas, which are the MDGs 1, 4, 5&6”, she said adding that the Ministry’s Internally Generated Funds had been increasing steadily- “with time, we will cease depending on them and fund our own programmes”.
The summit was to ascertain the extent to which programmes and activities planned for 2012 were implemented and the extent to which targets were met.
The five-day health summit organized by the Ministry was on the theme: “Count Down to 2013: Working together to Achieve MDG 4 and 5 to Save Lives”.
Mr Harry Van Dijk, Head of Operations of The Netherlands Embassy in Ghana, who represented the Development Partners, expressed their commitment in assisting Ghana address its health challenges.
He suggested that future summits should include other related Ministries and Departments as many concerns and challenges were linked and multi-sectoral.
The Minister of Health, Ms Sherry Ayettey, commended the Development Partners for the continuous support and contribution in ensuring development in the health sector but appealed to them for show commitment in timely disbursement to allow prompt implementation to all the agreed interventions.
“I am giving the assurance that we will work hard to rectify the shortfalls and demonstrate better results for 2013”, she concluded.
The Development Partners at the opening of the health summit commended Ghana’s Ministry of Health for the holistic assessment of the sector’s programme of work for 2012 but urged it to give priority attention to public finance management.
They said although the holistic assessment showed a neutral result, it was better than a negative score and commended the Ministry for developing regional and district plans to address the “All Hands on Deck for the MDG Acceleration Framework“.
Source: GNA