MamaYe will be working with our communities to make sure political pledges are met.
"…What we have been doing and what l will continue to do is to take health care to the mothers wherever they are to ensure that they have trained personnel who can monitor them before birth..."--President John Mahama speaking at the Final Presidential Debate, 21st November 2012
The Abuja Declaration - a commitment to ensure 15% of the annual budget is used to improve the health sector.
In April 2001, at a meeting of African leaders in the Nigerian capital, the Ghanaian government pledged to support the Abuja Declaration, that at least 15% of the government's annual budget is used to improve the health sector. No deadline was set for meeting this commitment. Taken from the "African Summit on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Other Related Infectious Diseases" and reproduced on the UN website here.
What has been done so far?
The latest available data (2011) shows the Ghanaian Government had held health sector allocation to 12% of the annual budget (the same as 2010).
The Maputo Plan of Action
In September 2006, at a meeting in the Mozambican capital, Ghana pledged to support the Maputo Plan which addresses "the serious threat" to "the right to health in Africa" (with) "poor sexual and reproductive health as a leading killer." The Ghanaian Government plan to address this threat through the following means:
- Integrating HIV/AIDS services into sexual and reproductive health and rights
- Promoting family planning as a crucial factor in attaining the Millennium Development Goals
- Supporting the sexual and reproductive health needs of adolescents and young people
- Addressing unsafe abortions
- Delivering quality and affordable health services to promote safe motherhood, child survival, and maternal, newborn and child health
- Adopting strategies that would ensure reproductive health commodity security
- Increasing resources for sexual and reproductive health, in alignment with the Abuja Declaration
The UN's Every Woman Every Child
In September 2010, at a summit for the UN Millenium Development Goals in New York, Ghana was one of the governments that pledged to "save the lives of 16 million women and children by 2015". Ghana pledged to do this by:
- Increasing funding for health to at least 15% of the national budget by 2015
- Strengthening its free maternal health care policy
- Ensuring that 95% of pregnant women are reached with comprehensive prevention of mother to child transmission service
- Ensuring security for family planning commodities
The Family Planning Summit
In July 2012, Ghana was one of the governments in attendance at a summit convened by the UK Government and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with UNFPA and other partners. The summit proposed to "mobilise global policy, financing, commodity, and service delivery commitments to support the rights of an additional 120 million women and girls in the world's poorest countries." The aim of the summit was to:
- Revitalize global commitments to family planning and access to contraceptives as a cost-effective and transformational development priority
- Improve the access and distribution of contraceptive supplies
- Remove and reduce barriers to family planning
To achieve these goals Ghana pledged to:
- Make family planning free in the public sector
- Support the private sector to provide services
- Prioritize improved counselling and customer care
- Expand contraceptive choices to include a wider range of long-acting and permanent methods, along with including task shifting options and improvement of post-partum and post-abortion family planning services
- Put in place a comprehensive multi-sectorial program to increase demand for family planning
- Undertake advocacy and communications to improve male involvement, such as the “Real Man” campaign