The Challenge
Since 2000 Ghana has worked to scale-up its Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) approach to primary health care (PHC) service delivery nationally. CHPS increases community participation in health decision-making at the PHC level with the aim of reducing maternal and child mortality. However, efforts to scale-up CHPS in Ghana have been slow and inconsistent across the ten regions. This is due to a variety of factors including weak human and financial capacity, as well as a lack of standard guidelines and cost information to help plan for national scale-up.
The Opportunity
The Government of Ghana (GoG) aims to accelerate achievement of universal health coverage (UHC) and bridge the inequity gap in health services by 2030. GoG aims to use CHPS as a mechanism for achieving this goal. To this end, the Ministry of Health (MOH) and its agencies are in need of tools and information to help them plan for effective national scale-up of CHPS.
Our Work
As part of USAID’s Maternal and Child Survival Program (MCSP), R4D is working with the Ministry of Health’s Ghana Health Service to support the scale-up of Community-Based Health and Planning Services across the country. R4D is helping Ministry officials to develop CHPS cost estimates and identify sources of financing for CHPS to inform policy, planning, and advocacy. In collaboration with Ghana Health Services, R4D is also developing a simplified Excel-based CHPS Planning Tool, which will allow district, regional, and national level stakeholders to cost CHPS scale-up and implementation and advocate for financing for CHPS.
