Government-led efforts supported by R4D
Ghana has maintained a strong political commitment to Universal Health Coverage (UHC) since the 1970s — and has the results to show for it. It is one of only three Sub-Saharan African countries to successfully implement a national health insurance program covering a substantial portion of the population, and its Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) and Networks of Practice approaches — both supported by R4D — have become widely recognized as innovative models.
R4D has worked alongside our partners in Ghana — the Ministry of Health, the National Health Insurance Authority, Ghana Health Service, the Health Facility Regulatory Agency, and others — providing continuous support to help solve multiple interwoven urgent challenges while also strengthening the whole system:
- Supporting provider capacity assessments that informed the subsequent design and piloting of the Networks of Practice
- Co-designing, piloting, and supporting the national scale-up of Networks of Practice
- Supporting NHIA to assess the magnitude of out-of-pocket payments among NHIS members nationwide
- Co-designing and costing a promotive and preventive benefits package to inform Free PHC and NHIS integration
- Developing a coaching and mentoring toolkit to strengthen PHC leadership
- Supporting the process of implementing and refining Ghana’s Universal Health Care Roadmap
As donor funding declines and fiscal pressures mount, Ghana faces urgent questions about how to sustain and strengthen its health financing systems. R4D has worked with Ghana’s key health financing institutions to help ensure resources are mobilized, allocated, and used as effectively as possible — supporting reforms that build toward a more resilient, locally led system:
- Supporting the NHIA to become a more strategic purchaser of health services, leading to greater value for funds spent
- Supporting NHIS with implementation research for financial sustainability reforms
- Designing and advancing provider payment and population-based purchasing approaches
Timely, reliable data is essential to a functioning health system. But turning data into decisions requires the right systems, tools and capacity. R4D has worked with Ghana’s health institutions to strengthen the country’s digital infrastructure and information systems, helping ensure that data flows effectively across levels of the health system and translates into action, from facility-level care to national policy.
- Supporting the implementation of FASTR — a Global Financing Facility for Women, Children, and Adolescents (GFF) initiative — which supports the Ghana Health Service with rapid analysis of key data to improve outcomes.
- Facilitated the development of Ghana’s National Health Information Systems Strategic Plan and supported the establishment of a national health database
- Strengthened patient-level digital data systems to improve decision-making at facility, district and national levels
- Supported HeFRA to develop standardized and digitized facility assessment tools for accreditation
- Coordinated data sharing with the Office of the President to manage Ghana’s COVID-19 response
- Supporting the Office of the Presidential Coordinator on COVID-19 to coordinate the national response across all relevant sectors, levels of the health system, and partners
- Supported the Ministry of Health to host its first virtual Annual Health Summit during COVID-19, ensuring continued national dialogue and broader international participation
- Supported Ghana Health Service to assess the use of maternal and child health services during the pandemic
- Deployed AI-powered analytic tools to accelerate routine health data analysis and drive targeted interventions for health systems performance improvement
Effective education systems require reliable data, sound policy, and the capacity to adapt. R4D has partnered with Ghana’s Ministry of Education and other stakeholders to provide analysis and technical support that helps decision-makers tackle equity, inclusion, and resilience challenges. As technology — including AI — becomes an increasingly powerful but complex force in education, we are helping Ghana’s education leaders cut through the noise, identifying what works and ensuring that new tools serve the system’s broader goals.
- Developed a new education accountability dashboard that harmonizes education data across all the Ministry of Education’s departments and agencies
- Conducted large-scale analysis of low-fee private schools to inform government decision-making on affordability, quality, and system equity and improve the policy and regulatory framework governing these schools
- Conducted a national Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) landscape analysis to identify policy, system, and service delivery gaps and inform inclusive education strategies
- Providing analysis and technical support to integrate climate resilience and adaptation into education planning, policy, and implementation
Addressing malnutrition demands coordinated action across sectors — backed by evidence and sustained by reliable financing. R4D has worked with Ghana’s National Development Planning Commission to strengthen the data and decision-making systems that underpin this work: helping districts identify the highest-impact nutrition interventions, build the cross-sector partnerships needed to deliver them, and ensure nutrition is embedded in local plans and budgets for the long-term.
- Supported the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) to develop a nutrition financing framework for 17 districts in northern Ghana to strengthen decision-making on program planning, financing and implementation for nutrition and resilience
- Supporting NDPC in their effort to increase district-level funding for nutrition through prioritization of nutrition in district plans and budgets
Ghana has made meaningful strides in building a science, technology and innovation (STI) ecosystem capable of driving sustainable development and economic growth. Sustaining that momentum requires ensuring promising research and innovations can reach the people and markets they’re meant to serve. Too often, innovations stall before making a real-world difference, held back by gaps in policy, limited commercialization pathways, and fragmented coordination among the many actors — government ministries, researchers, entrepreneurs and funders — working toward shared goals. R4D is working with the Government of Ghana to address these structural barriers, supporting reforms that connect innovation to impact at scale.
Our approach is grounded in partnership — working at the request of, and alongside, Ghanaian government institutions, and focused on their priorities. We start by understanding government objectives, then we collaborate with leaders to generate the analysis needed to inform decisions. Drawing on global evidence and cross-country experience, we facilitate structured stakeholder engagement to build alignment and consensus. Together, we co-design practical implementation plans that strengthen existing capacities, processes, and institutions. We remain engaged through piloting, learning, and scale-up to support sustained results.
Read more about our team and our activities below.
