Africare-Ghana

Africare’s History in Ghana

Africare has been working in Ghana since 1989 with the first project in the country on food production in the village of Abomosu in the Eastern Region. Over a period of two decades since then, Africare has completed projects in the sectorsof: food security, pharmaceuticals, child survival and maternal health, basic education, small business development, microcredit lending, information technology, community nutrition, water and sanitation, malaria and HIV/AIDS initiatives. Among these, Africare's major area of activity in Ghana has been health. In 1989, building on earlier work in The Gambia, Africare began a series of projects to help the Ghanaian Ministry of Health to strengthen its systems for the management and distribution of essential pharmaceuticals. An HIV/AIDS prevention initiative was launched in 1999, followed by a large child survival project.

Africare’s work in Ghana was initiated in 1989, out of our headquarters office, under a grant from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Days Saints in support of a Community Food Production Project at the village of Abomosu. Upon receipt in early 1989 of a $25,000 grant from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), Africare partnered with the Ghana Ministry of Health in designing a project for strengthening pharmaceutical management and distribution systems in Ghana in ways which could benefit from Africare’s earlier essential drug program partnerships with the Governments of The Gambia and Sierra Leone.  Upon review of the design, PhRMA awarded Africare a grant of $275,000, which Africare was able to supplement with an additional $50,000 contributed by the International Foundation, with which Africare and the Ministry of Health undertook the project. The first activity was a familiarization tour, enabling selected senior government pharmaceutical and store keeping staff from representative regions throughout Ghana, accompanied by the Africare headquarters Pharmaceutical Specialist and his Sierra Leonean counterpart, to visit and observe improved management and distribution systems in operation in Sierra Leone. Next, the Africare Specialist assisted at times by his Sierra Leone counterpart provided on-site training and material assistance to Ministry of Health (MOH) pharmaceutical and storekeeping staff in Ghana, enabling them to incorporate desired features and practices to their own systems.

 

In 1995, a Ghanaian physician with a well-established medical practice in the United States, Dr. Vincent Anku, began to support Africare through annual donations to the Bishop John T. Walker Memorial Dinner.  He earmarked a substantial portion of his contributions for support of self-help projects in his birthplace (Alavanyo) and neighboring towns in Volta Region. Local community members through their leaders prioritized the site, sectors of need and local contributions (labor/materials) for each project. Africare helped them to organize, design, implement and report upon the projects. Through this approach, a total of $136,379 was devoted to projects for rural electrification, road improvement, kindergarten and primary education, community library, women’s income generation, and improved water and sanitation. Funds provided to Africare by Dr. Anku were also used to pay the material costs for self-help rehabilitation of a rural road and primary school building, build and stock a school library, set up a revolving scholarship fund for junior high school girls to advance to senior secondary schools outside their locality, obtain sports and recreation materials for community and school soccer, expand and improve market stands, and provide desks and educational materials for kindergarten and elementary students.

In September 1997, Africare received a grant of $1.4 million from USAID/Ghana in support of a child survival project designed to expand community-based maternal and child health services and thus help to lower maternal and child mortality and morbidity in Akatsi and South Tongu Districts of Volta Region. Under this grant, Africare was able to open a Country Office in Accra and project office in Akatsi. During the ensuing five years (1998 to 2003), Africare staff, in partnership with the Navrongo Health Research Center, supported regional and district level health authorities in the training, supervision and support of Community Health Nurses and Traditional Birth Attendants in order to strengthen preventive outreach and curative care. This USAID grant brought Africare’s cumulative level of funding in Ghana to a total of $2 million.

From 2002 – 2005, Africare partnered with Opportunities Industrialization Centers International and the Muslim Relief Association of Ghana to empower youth and vocational trade apprentices. In 2008, Africare secured funds Mars Inc. and African Well Fund and has been implementing additional activities centered on public health in rural communities of the Western and Central regions of Ghana. Through these engagements, Africare has developed partnerships with the government and its MDAs, NGOs, CBOs and rural communities which host our target beneficiaries. Whilst our aim is strengthening these existing partnerships, we also seek to build new ones and scale them up through your support to multiply the thousands of lives we have already impacted with our projects.

 

 

Africare-Ghana Today

 Currently, Africare Ghana is implementing activities in 2 out of 61 cocoa growing districts in Ghana. These activities are being implemented under two projects funded by African Well Fund (AWF) and Mars Inc.: Water for Cocoa Farmers project and Mars Partnership for African Cocoa Communities of Tomorrow (iMPACT Health) project. Under these projects, Africare works with Ghana Education Service, the Ghana Health Service, the Department of Social Welfare under the district governments, NGOs and community based organizations to provide services leading to the social and economic empowerment of the target communities, improvement of school infrastructure, general wellbeing and health, including maternal and child health, malaria control and HIV/AIDS prevention and management.

  

The purpose of the iMPACT Health project which runs until February 2011 is to reduce the burden of illnesses such as malaria, diarrhea and HIV/AIDS, especially among women and children in the cocoa farm communities of the districts of Assin North and Wassa Amenfi West in the Central and Western regions respectively, seeking, as its overall goal,  to increase the capacity of communities, local health facilities, NGOs/CBOs, families and individuals to prevent new illnesses, while improving access to high quality and sustainable services and products. The project works mainly through pre-existing schools and Ghana Health Service’s Community-based Health Planning and Service (CHPS) programs and relies on existing MOH structures and personnel at the regional, district and sub-district levels, aiming to enhance MOH capabilities rather than creating a parallel project management structure.

 

Country Profile: Ghana

REGION: West Africa
CAPITAL CITY: Accra
POPULATION: 24,339,838
LAND AREA: 227,533 sq km (141,382 sq miles)

Years of economic restructuring and democratization have made Ghana, in the opinion of many, one of the most promising countries in Africa today. In 1957, Ghana became the first of Sub-Saharan Africa's colonized countries to gain independence (from Britain). In 1992, after more than a decade of movement toward democracy, Ghana adopted a milestone constitution allowing multiparty politics and paving the way for free elections ever since. Internally stable, Ghana also has contributed to regional stability by means, for example, of peacekeeping troops. Ghana is the world's second-largest producer of cocoa; and major offshore oil reserves, the discovery of which was announced in mid-2007, are likely to spur the country's economic growth over the coming years. Like their neighbors Africa-wide, most Ghanaians are farmers — and most of those are small landholders who operate at the subsistence level.
           

Country Stats Life expectancy: 59.1 years (USA: 77.9) Under-5 child mortality: 112/1,000 live births (USA: 7/1,000) HIV prevalence, ages 15-49: [1.7 - 2.2]% (USA: [0.4 - 1.0]%) Physicians per 100,000 people: 15 (USA: 256) People undernourished: 11% (USA: 0%) People with access to safe drinking water: 75% (USA: 100%) Adult literacy: 57.9% (USA: 99%) Gross National Income per Captia: $2,480 (USA: $41,890) People living on less than $1 a day: 44.8% (USA: 0%) (HIV prevalence statistics, UNAIDS. All other statistics, 2007/2008 Human Development Report, UNDP)

(Updated, June 2010)