JOICFP, Upper Manya Health Directorate sign MoU for health promotion
The Japanese Organisation for International Cooperation in Family Planning (JOICFP) and the Upper Manya Krobo District Health Administration (UMKDHA) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to promote quality healthcare in the district.
To this end, JOICEF has handed over a Maternal Neonatal Child Health (MNCH) project to UMKDHA to ensure sustainability and further enhancement of the project gains towards universal access to quality Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) and MNCH information and care in the district.
The Upper Manya Krobo District in the Eastern Region has serious maternal mortality and morbidity challenges. To address these challenges, JOICEF initiated a project in collaboration with the Ghana Health Service (GHS) and the UMK District Health Directorate from June 2023 to May 2026.
The project aimed to improve the health of pregnant and breastfeeding women, as well as the health of children under five years, through the establishment of sustainable community health systems.
The three-year project, which was supported by SHIONOGI and Company Limited, a Pharmaceutical Company in Japan, aims to improve access to MNCH services including prevention of under-five and childhood diarrhoea in the project sites.
The UMKDHA, in partnership with JOICFP, worked jointly for improving access to effective, affordable and quality MNCH services in the target sites through a community-approach strategy.
The MoU was signed by Dr Abdul Aziz Abdulai, the District Director for the GHS and initialed by Mayumi Katsube for JOICFP at a dissemination meeting at Asesewa.
The meeting, which was on the theme “Promotion of MNCH through community empowerment in Upper Manya Krobo District Ghana,” was aimed at sharing the achievements, lessons and challenges during the project implementation period. It was also to reaffirm the project sustainability plan by collaborating partners and signing of the MoU.
As part of the disseminating meeting, participants from the five sub-districts of the Upper Manya Krobo District namely; Akateng, Asesewa, Sekesua, Otrokper and Anyaboni shared good practices, as well as lessons learnt through the project indicators, project purpose, key interventions and collaboration achieved.
Observation
The Country Director of JOICFP, Emmanuel Obeng, in his remarks, lauded community health volunteers who though were not paid, sacrificed their time and energy to organise health education programmes for the various community members to do referrals, saying “their commitment level is wonderful”.
The Corporate Officer and Senior Vice-President, Sustainability Management Division of SHIONOGI and Co. Limited, Deguchi Masashi in his message said the Mother to Mother SHIONOGI Project had been carried out based on their belief that protecting the health of mothers and children formed the foundation of a sustainable society.
He thanked the regional health directorate, the district assembly and the Upper Manya Krobo Health directorate for welcoming the project as part of their efforts to address the health challenges faced by Upper Manya Krobo District.
The Acting Eastern Regional Director of the GHS, Dr Moses Djimatey, thanked the JOICFP, SHIONOGI and the Japanese Government for the project which also trained staff of the GHS.
He called on health workers across the country to take their work serious even without supervision.
