Daily Graphic (back page), Friday, Sept. 19/08
Story: Rebecca Quaicoe Duho
THE AMA has started dumping solid waste at a landfill site at Kwashie Bu in Accra, 24 hours after the call for the closure of the Oblogo landfill site by the Oblogo Mantse, Nii Kwaku Bibini III.
The 15-acre quarry site has for the past nine years been operated by a waste contracting company, Yafuru Waste, and the company has filled about two thirds of the site to reclaim the land.
A source close to the site told the Daily Graphic that the AMA on Wednesday morning fumigated surrounding buildings in the area.
Later, the source said trucks carrying solid waste were seen dumping their waste at the site.
An insider who wanted to remain anonymous gave a brief history of the site to the Daily Graphic, saying that the AMA was given the permit to operate the site in 1993 but they left for a bigger site at Mallam after working at the Kwashie Bu site for two years.
The insider said the land, which belongs to the Mayaku Family of Accra, was then given to Yafuru Waste in 1995, after which an agreement was signed in 1998 between the queen, Naa Adokwei Mamaga II, and officials of the company to refill the place.
So far, part of the land that has been reclaimed by the company has been used for the erection of a school and a church.
When the Daily Graphic visited the site yesterday, it was observed that the AMA had taken charge of the site and was issuing out tickets to trucks that brought their waste for dumping.
An official of the AMA who did not want to be mentioned confirmed that the AMA was going to work there on a temporary basis.
Further enquiries from other sources revealed that a four-member delegation from the waste department of the AMA yesterday morning visited Naa Mamaga II to discuss how best the AMA could partner Yafuru Waste to refill the site.
The source also confirmed that the AMA Chief Executive, Mr Stanley Adjiri Blankson, was also going to meet the queen later in the day to finalise the agreement.
According to the source, the delegation assured the queen that the AMA was only going to be at the site for between three and four weeks, after which they would move to Sampa, near Weija, where it was constructing the roads and also putting in place other social amenities before it starts operations there.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Justice systems don't favour women–C. J
Daily Graphic, Spread, Thursday, Nov. 20/08
Story: Rebecca Quaicoe Duho
THE Chief Justice, Mrs Justice Georgina Wood, has noted that the justice systems in many countries, particularly those in Africa, are not kind to women and attributed the African version of the problem to the high illiteracy rate on the continent.
She said this when she opened a two-day colloquium on “The role of the judiciary in promoting justice in Africa”.
It was hosted by the Judicial Service and brought together 60 participants from across Africa.
The colloquium, which is an initiative of the Partners for Gender Justice (PGJ), was organised in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the International Legal Assistance Consortium (ILAC), the International Association of Women Judges (IAWJ) and the Bandies University.
The PGJ, which was launched in 2004, is an informal partnership of interested state actors, non-governmental organisations, United Nation actors, international and regional organisations and academic institutions that are interested in promoting gender justice.
The Chief Justice said, "Laws need to be demystified and made accessible to the public, especially women," adding that the legal maxim that presumed everybody to know the law was fiction and had no place in Africa where majority of the population was illiterate.
Mrs Justice Wood said although on paper national constitutions, laws and international conventions, instruments and protocols seemed to promote equality between men and women, the reality was still a mirage.
She observed that "in most African countries equitable and sustainable development has been stunted because women are marginalised and gender considerations not given the needed attention," adding, "Human development, if not engendered, is endangered."
She said women’s issues were now recognised as human rights issues and were required to receive maximum attention at both national and international levels, adding that "unfortunately, the status of most women is still deplorable, compared to that of men”.
She said the Ghanaian judiciary had taken steps to ensure that the theme for the next couple of years, "Access to Justice", was a reality and not just a sound bite.
The UNDP Country Representative, Mr Daouda Toure, in an address, said Ghana had made modest gains in women’s access to justice since Beijing but added that there were still some barriers that needed to be dealt with.
In a speech read on her behalf, the Director and Assistant Administrator of the Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery of the UNDP, Ms Kathleen Cravero, said gender justice empowered women to contribute to a society based on the rule of law, adding that it meant taking positive measures to educate women and secure their equal representation in all legal issues.
Story: Rebecca Quaicoe Duho
THE Chief Justice, Mrs Justice Georgina Wood, has noted that the justice systems in many countries, particularly those in Africa, are not kind to women and attributed the African version of the problem to the high illiteracy rate on the continent.
She said this when she opened a two-day colloquium on “The role of the judiciary in promoting justice in Africa”.
It was hosted by the Judicial Service and brought together 60 participants from across Africa.
The colloquium, which is an initiative of the Partners for Gender Justice (PGJ), was organised in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the International Legal Assistance Consortium (ILAC), the International Association of Women Judges (IAWJ) and the Bandies University.
The PGJ, which was launched in 2004, is an informal partnership of interested state actors, non-governmental organisations, United Nation actors, international and regional organisations and academic institutions that are interested in promoting gender justice.
The Chief Justice said, "Laws need to be demystified and made accessible to the public, especially women," adding that the legal maxim that presumed everybody to know the law was fiction and had no place in Africa where majority of the population was illiterate.
Mrs Justice Wood said although on paper national constitutions, laws and international conventions, instruments and protocols seemed to promote equality between men and women, the reality was still a mirage.
She observed that "in most African countries equitable and sustainable development has been stunted because women are marginalised and gender considerations not given the needed attention," adding, "Human development, if not engendered, is endangered."
She said women’s issues were now recognised as human rights issues and were required to receive maximum attention at both national and international levels, adding that "unfortunately, the status of most women is still deplorable, compared to that of men”.
She said the Ghanaian judiciary had taken steps to ensure that the theme for the next couple of years, "Access to Justice", was a reality and not just a sound bite.
The UNDP Country Representative, Mr Daouda Toure, in an address, said Ghana had made modest gains in women’s access to justice since Beijing but added that there were still some barriers that needed to be dealt with.
In a speech read on her behalf, the Director and Assistant Administrator of the Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery of the UNDP, Ms Kathleen Cravero, said gender justice empowered women to contribute to a society based on the rule of law, adding that it meant taking positive measures to educate women and secure their equal representation in all legal issues.
Competency-based training for 22 vocational heads
Daily Graphic, pg. 11, Thursday, Nov. 20/08
Story Rebecca Quaicoe Duho, Peduase
THE hospitality industry in the country is characterised by intense competition as tourists become more sensitive to quality customer service delivery.
Tourists have the options of choosing from alternative destinations, facilities and services.
The industry provides services such as travel and tour, front office operations, food and beverage service and sales, housekeeping, heritage and eco-tourism, interpretation services, leisure, sports and recreation and event support management. It is envisaged to become the largest employer in the next few years.
This, therefore, calls for a training system to be established to support high quality service in all areas of the hospitality industry.
The industry, which is the third largest foreign exchange earnerin the country, employs about 200,000 of the country’s workforce. Women are said to constitute 70 per cent of the workforce in the industry and, therefore, has the potential of changing the status of many Ghanaians especially, women employed in the industry.
The industry is, however, bedeviled with challenges including inadequate travel and accommodation infrastructure, shortage of trained professionals and skilled personnel, low productivity and high cost of service delivery, poor quality of service, inadequate safety and security facilities and weak training infrastructure, among others.
It is as a result of the need for training to address some of these challenges that the Vocational Training for Females’ (VTF) with support from the Japanesse International Cooperation Agency (JICA), on Monday organised a two-day Competency-Based Training (CBT) for 22 instructors from vocational institutions from across the country at Peduase in the Eastern Region.
The training also formed part of the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) support project being implemented by the Council for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (COTVET) as part of curriculum reforms in vocational and technical institutions across the country.
The Executive Director of the Ghana Tourists Board, Mr Martin Mireku, in a keynote address, said the need for a curriculum reform in the hospitality industry had become necessary due to globalisation.
He said, “for Ghana’s tourism and hospitality industry to become competitive, it should aim at attaining international quality standards”.
He said for that to be possible, the training of people in the hospitality industry should follow the international trend of basing qualifications on performance standards rather than on the passing of courses and examinations.
He said tourist arrivals have increased significantly over the past decades recording an increase of 18 per cent in 2006.
According to him, it is projected that the country would earn $1.5 billion from the industry by the year 2010.
Mr Mireku, however, said Ghana’s tourism industry was marked by a critical shortage of skilled and service-friendly personnel at the operations, supervisory, and management levels.
He said it was unfortunate that the country did not have any well-organised training system neither did it have a national performance standards or quality assurance measures for training in place.
He said the training of personnel in the industry should be based on what employers want their employees to exhibit at the work place which should form the basis of what was taught, learned and assessed for the purposes of certification.
Mr Mireku who called for a mandatory on-the-job training for personnel, also stressed the need to introduce a system of accreditation to regulate training for the industry to address those shorfalls in the training of personnel for the industry.
The acting Executive Director, COTVET, Mr Asamoah Duodu, in an address, said the government was promoting technical and vocational education under the new educational reform with the view of equipping the youth with employable skills to reduce poverty and creating wealth.
The Project Administrator of JICA/TVETs projects, Mr Yoshio Ishiyama said a quality human resource base was essential for nation building, and noted that Japan “do not have rich natural resources like gold and oil as Ghana does, so we educated and trained our people. This gave us the foundation for economic growth”.
He commended the VTF for the initiative and indicated that the initiative could only be fully operationalised depending on the commitment of the individuals involved.
The Executive Director of M-Plaza, a hospitality industry, Mr Edmund Ofosu-Yeboah expressed concern that the country had not been successful in getting the needed manpower to operate the industry that met the required standards.
Story Rebecca Quaicoe Duho, Peduase
THE hospitality industry in the country is characterised by intense competition as tourists become more sensitive to quality customer service delivery.
Tourists have the options of choosing from alternative destinations, facilities and services.
The industry provides services such as travel and tour, front office operations, food and beverage service and sales, housekeeping, heritage and eco-tourism, interpretation services, leisure, sports and recreation and event support management. It is envisaged to become the largest employer in the next few years.
This, therefore, calls for a training system to be established to support high quality service in all areas of the hospitality industry.
The industry, which is the third largest foreign exchange earnerin the country, employs about 200,000 of the country’s workforce. Women are said to constitute 70 per cent of the workforce in the industry and, therefore, has the potential of changing the status of many Ghanaians especially, women employed in the industry.
The industry is, however, bedeviled with challenges including inadequate travel and accommodation infrastructure, shortage of trained professionals and skilled personnel, low productivity and high cost of service delivery, poor quality of service, inadequate safety and security facilities and weak training infrastructure, among others.
It is as a result of the need for training to address some of these challenges that the Vocational Training for Females’ (VTF) with support from the Japanesse International Cooperation Agency (JICA), on Monday organised a two-day Competency-Based Training (CBT) for 22 instructors from vocational institutions from across the country at Peduase in the Eastern Region.
The training also formed part of the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) support project being implemented by the Council for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (COTVET) as part of curriculum reforms in vocational and technical institutions across the country.
The Executive Director of the Ghana Tourists Board, Mr Martin Mireku, in a keynote address, said the need for a curriculum reform in the hospitality industry had become necessary due to globalisation.
He said, “for Ghana’s tourism and hospitality industry to become competitive, it should aim at attaining international quality standards”.
He said for that to be possible, the training of people in the hospitality industry should follow the international trend of basing qualifications on performance standards rather than on the passing of courses and examinations.
He said tourist arrivals have increased significantly over the past decades recording an increase of 18 per cent in 2006.
According to him, it is projected that the country would earn $1.5 billion from the industry by the year 2010.
Mr Mireku, however, said Ghana’s tourism industry was marked by a critical shortage of skilled and service-friendly personnel at the operations, supervisory, and management levels.
He said it was unfortunate that the country did not have any well-organised training system neither did it have a national performance standards or quality assurance measures for training in place.
He said the training of personnel in the industry should be based on what employers want their employees to exhibit at the work place which should form the basis of what was taught, learned and assessed for the purposes of certification.
Mr Mireku who called for a mandatory on-the-job training for personnel, also stressed the need to introduce a system of accreditation to regulate training for the industry to address those shorfalls in the training of personnel for the industry.
The acting Executive Director, COTVET, Mr Asamoah Duodu, in an address, said the government was promoting technical and vocational education under the new educational reform with the view of equipping the youth with employable skills to reduce poverty and creating wealth.
The Project Administrator of JICA/TVETs projects, Mr Yoshio Ishiyama said a quality human resource base was essential for nation building, and noted that Japan “do not have rich natural resources like gold and oil as Ghana does, so we educated and trained our people. This gave us the foundation for economic growth”.
He commended the VTF for the initiative and indicated that the initiative could only be fully operationalised depending on the commitment of the individuals involved.
The Executive Director of M-Plaza, a hospitality industry, Mr Edmund Ofosu-Yeboah expressed concern that the country had not been successful in getting the needed manpower to operate the industry that met the required standards.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Environmental reporting course opens in Berlin
Daily Graphic Pg. 2, Tuesday, July 08,08
Story Rebecca Quaicoe Duho, Berlin, Germany
A six-week training course on environmental reporting for fifteen journalists from seven developing countries has opened at Berlin in Germany.
The participants are drawn from Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania, India, Bangladesh, Jordon and Indonnesia.
The trainning programme is being organised by the International Institute of Journalism (IIJ) in conjunction with The Capacity Building Institute (InWent), Germany and it is aimed at building the capacities of the journalists on current environmental happenings across the globe.
The training will cover areas such as waste management, global warming, climate change, nuclear energy, ecology, water and sanitation, renewable energies, rural electrification, biodiversity, land degradation and desertification.
The journalists will be lectured by seasoned lecturers on the environment such as Mr Martin Meister, a Managing Editor of a science magazine in Germany, Mr Peter Plappert, a freelance consultant and trainer on environmental issues, Mr Pierre portas, a biologist by training, Mr Ludwig Pulschen, an agricultural engineer, Mr Henner Weithoner, an on-line publisher and editor-in-chief of a renewable energy journal and Ms Annedore Smith, a journalist with the Associated Press.
The participants will also go on field trips across Germany to visit some solar company’s and learn at first hand some of their success stories on environmental conversation such as to the world’s largest solar electric systems in Arnstein-Germany, visit the international Solar Energy Society and Germany’s biggest geothermal projects in Berlin.
The Head of IIJ, Ms Astrid Kohl who oepned the course said IIJ was aimed at building the capacities of mid-carrier journalists on topical issues affecting the globe such as on the environment, business and political reporting.
She said the institute as a policy organises about 40 to 45 courses every year to cover topical issues with special focus on West and South Africa, India and South East Asia.
Story Rebecca Quaicoe Duho, Berlin, Germany
A six-week training course on environmental reporting for fifteen journalists from seven developing countries has opened at Berlin in Germany.
The participants are drawn from Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania, India, Bangladesh, Jordon and Indonnesia.
The trainning programme is being organised by the International Institute of Journalism (IIJ) in conjunction with The Capacity Building Institute (InWent), Germany and it is aimed at building the capacities of the journalists on current environmental happenings across the globe.
The training will cover areas such as waste management, global warming, climate change, nuclear energy, ecology, water and sanitation, renewable energies, rural electrification, biodiversity, land degradation and desertification.
The journalists will be lectured by seasoned lecturers on the environment such as Mr Martin Meister, a Managing Editor of a science magazine in Germany, Mr Peter Plappert, a freelance consultant and trainer on environmental issues, Mr Pierre portas, a biologist by training, Mr Ludwig Pulschen, an agricultural engineer, Mr Henner Weithoner, an on-line publisher and editor-in-chief of a renewable energy journal and Ms Annedore Smith, a journalist with the Associated Press.
The participants will also go on field trips across Germany to visit some solar company’s and learn at first hand some of their success stories on environmental conversation such as to the world’s largest solar electric systems in Arnstein-Germany, visit the international Solar Energy Society and Germany’s biggest geothermal projects in Berlin.
The Head of IIJ, Ms Astrid Kohl who oepned the course said IIJ was aimed at building the capacities of mid-carrier journalists on topical issues affecting the globe such as on the environment, business and political reporting.
She said the institute as a policy organises about 40 to 45 courses every year to cover topical issues with special focus on West and South Africa, India and South East Asia.
Sai calls for ways to reduce population
Daily Graphic Pg. 47, Thursday, Nov. 13, 08
Story: Charles Benoni Okine & Rebecca Quaicoe-Duho
THE Presidential Advisor on HIV/AIDS and Reproductive Health, Professor F.T. Sai, has called on those vying for the presidency in this year’s general election to design practical ways of controlling population growth in the country.
“No country in the world has achieved rapid development with a population growth of more than two per cent,” he said.
Professor Sai, who made the call at the launch of this year’s World AIDS Day in Accra, said the country’s population growth presently stood at between 2.5 and 2.6 per cent and noted that it behoved those aspiring to lead the country to take that into serious consideration if they were to achieve their development agenda lined up for the country.
This year’s World AIDS Day, which falls on December 1, will be on the theme, “Leadership, Reducing Stigma and Discrimination” .
In Ghana, the target for this year’s celebration is to enhance and advocate for leadership and accountability to address the HIV epidemic in Ghana at all levels by engaging everybody in decision making at the national, regional, district, community, family and individual levels; help to reduce stigma and discrimination and help increase counselling and testing services.
As part of the activities, the Ghana Aids Commission will sponsor a nation-wide HIV/AIDS campaign dubbed, “Know your status”, which is being undertaken by the Ministry of Health (MoH) to encourage more people to avail themselves for voluntary testing.
Professor Sai said issues about women were critical and that no leadership at the governmental level, for instance, needed to toy with them because of the peculiar role women played in national development.
In a speech read on his behalf, Vice-President Aliu Mahama said, “Ghana, fortunately, is still not as badly affected as some sister African countries. However, the disease has claimed a cumulative death of about 200,000 Ghanaians and this is stark warning to us that if we do not prevent it now, many more lives will be lost without treatment.”
Alhaji Mahama stressed the need for the introduction of measures to improve access to care for the infected and increase awareness of HIV-related burden that was usually shouldered by women, girls and the aged.
The Director-General of the Ghana AIDS Commission (GAC), Prof Sakyi Awuku Amoa, in an address, said the commission was conscious of the fact that the country had not been able to achieve much in the area of behavioural change and called for more support from all.
He said the government continued to give attention to the low prevalence rate of the infection in the country, saying so far all district hospitals provided anti-retroviral therapy for PLHIV across the country.
The United Nations (UN) Resident Co-ordinator, Mr Daouda Toure, in a statement, said stigmatisation could not be reduced in the country without the active involvement of “our leaders, Persons Living with HIV (PLHIV), the media, other key stakeholders and society as a whole”.
The Chief of the USAID Health Office, Ms Bethanne Moskov, in a statement, also called on the need for people to treat PLHIV with more dignity and respect, saying it was the only way that the epidemic could be fought.
The President of the Society for Women and AIDS in Africa (SWAA), Mrs Cecelia Senoo, together with the President of the National Association of Positive Persons (NAP+), Mr Clement Azigiwe, called for commitment on the part of the leaders of the country to ensure that the rights of PLHIV were not infringed upon.
Story: Charles Benoni Okine & Rebecca Quaicoe-Duho
THE Presidential Advisor on HIV/AIDS and Reproductive Health, Professor F.T. Sai, has called on those vying for the presidency in this year’s general election to design practical ways of controlling population growth in the country.
“No country in the world has achieved rapid development with a population growth of more than two per cent,” he said.
Professor Sai, who made the call at the launch of this year’s World AIDS Day in Accra, said the country’s population growth presently stood at between 2.5 and 2.6 per cent and noted that it behoved those aspiring to lead the country to take that into serious consideration if they were to achieve their development agenda lined up for the country.
This year’s World AIDS Day, which falls on December 1, will be on the theme, “Leadership, Reducing Stigma and Discrimination” .
In Ghana, the target for this year’s celebration is to enhance and advocate for leadership and accountability to address the HIV epidemic in Ghana at all levels by engaging everybody in decision making at the national, regional, district, community, family and individual levels; help to reduce stigma and discrimination and help increase counselling and testing services.
As part of the activities, the Ghana Aids Commission will sponsor a nation-wide HIV/AIDS campaign dubbed, “Know your status”, which is being undertaken by the Ministry of Health (MoH) to encourage more people to avail themselves for voluntary testing.
Professor Sai said issues about women were critical and that no leadership at the governmental level, for instance, needed to toy with them because of the peculiar role women played in national development.
In a speech read on his behalf, Vice-President Aliu Mahama said, “Ghana, fortunately, is still not as badly affected as some sister African countries. However, the disease has claimed a cumulative death of about 200,000 Ghanaians and this is stark warning to us that if we do not prevent it now, many more lives will be lost without treatment.”
Alhaji Mahama stressed the need for the introduction of measures to improve access to care for the infected and increase awareness of HIV-related burden that was usually shouldered by women, girls and the aged.
The Director-General of the Ghana AIDS Commission (GAC), Prof Sakyi Awuku Amoa, in an address, said the commission was conscious of the fact that the country had not been able to achieve much in the area of behavioural change and called for more support from all.
He said the government continued to give attention to the low prevalence rate of the infection in the country, saying so far all district hospitals provided anti-retroviral therapy for PLHIV across the country.
The United Nations (UN) Resident Co-ordinator, Mr Daouda Toure, in a statement, said stigmatisation could not be reduced in the country without the active involvement of “our leaders, Persons Living with HIV (PLHIV), the media, other key stakeholders and society as a whole”.
The Chief of the USAID Health Office, Ms Bethanne Moskov, in a statement, also called on the need for people to treat PLHIV with more dignity and respect, saying it was the only way that the epidemic could be fought.
The President of the Society for Women and AIDS in Africa (SWAA), Mrs Cecelia Senoo, together with the President of the National Association of Positive Persons (NAP+), Mr Clement Azigiwe, called for commitment on the part of the leaders of the country to ensure that the rights of PLHIV were not infringed upon.
Study to improve access to medicine
Daily Graphic Pg.3, Thursday, Nov. 13, 08
Story Rebecca Quaicoe Duho & Gifty Bamfo
A two-year pilot study to help address issues of drug availability and counterfeits in Ghana was launched yesterday with the inauguration of the Medicines Transparency Alliance (MeTA), Ghana in Accra.
MeTA is a multi-stakeholder alliance working to improve access and affordability of medicines to people either due to high cost or unavailability of drugs.
Six other countries, the Philippines, Jordan, Kyrgystan, Peru, Uganda and Zambia, are also undertaking the pilot projects.
The Deputy Minister of Health, Dr (Mrs) Gladys Ashitey, who launched the MeTA, Ghana project, said Ghana was found as an enabling environment for the pilot project due to its existing enabling legislative and policy environment.
She mentioned some areas of such enabling environment as the government’s commitment to good governance, the passage of the Public Procurement Act 2003, the Whistle Blowers Act and the setting up of organisations for the collection and reporting of data on aspects of medicine supply and use such as the Food and Drugs Board (FDB), the Central Medical Stores (CMS), the Ghana National Drugs Programme (GNDP) and the Christian Health Association of Ghana (CHAG).
Dr Ashitey said the Ministry of Health’s five-year programme of work reflected the principles underpinning MeTA concepts.
The Deputy Director of DFID-Ghana, Ms Pauline Seenan, said the U.K. government had committed 7.3 million euros to underwrite the cost of MeTA pilot projects over the next 24 months in several countries, including Ghana.
“If the pilot projects go well and MeTA could add value to country efforts, the U.K. was committed to providing funds over a 10-year period to strengthen further multi-stakeholder approach,” she stated.
She expressed the hope that MeTA would contribute to improving client satisfaction, allocation and use of available resources.
Story Rebecca Quaicoe Duho & Gifty Bamfo
A two-year pilot study to help address issues of drug availability and counterfeits in Ghana was launched yesterday with the inauguration of the Medicines Transparency Alliance (MeTA), Ghana in Accra.
MeTA is a multi-stakeholder alliance working to improve access and affordability of medicines to people either due to high cost or unavailability of drugs.
Six other countries, the Philippines, Jordan, Kyrgystan, Peru, Uganda and Zambia, are also undertaking the pilot projects.
The Deputy Minister of Health, Dr (Mrs) Gladys Ashitey, who launched the MeTA, Ghana project, said Ghana was found as an enabling environment for the pilot project due to its existing enabling legislative and policy environment.
She mentioned some areas of such enabling environment as the government’s commitment to good governance, the passage of the Public Procurement Act 2003, the Whistle Blowers Act and the setting up of organisations for the collection and reporting of data on aspects of medicine supply and use such as the Food and Drugs Board (FDB), the Central Medical Stores (CMS), the Ghana National Drugs Programme (GNDP) and the Christian Health Association of Ghana (CHAG).
Dr Ashitey said the Ministry of Health’s five-year programme of work reflected the principles underpinning MeTA concepts.
The Deputy Director of DFID-Ghana, Ms Pauline Seenan, said the U.K. government had committed 7.3 million euros to underwrite the cost of MeTA pilot projects over the next 24 months in several countries, including Ghana.
“If the pilot projects go well and MeTA could add value to country efforts, the U.K. was committed to providing funds over a 10-year period to strengthen further multi-stakeholder approach,” she stated.
She expressed the hope that MeTA would contribute to improving client satisfaction, allocation and use of available resources.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Watch your lifestyle
12/11/08 Daily Graphic pg. 31
Story Rebecca Quaicoe Duho
THE Minister of Health, Major (rtd) Courage Quarshigah, has called on Ghanaians to practise regenerative health and healthy lifestyles to increase their life expectancy from the present 57 years.
He said it behoved people to go back to the basics and practise regenerative diet as well as personal hygiene, if they wanted to live longer.
Major Quarshigah, who made the call at the opening of a five-day conference for senior nursing officers, said regenerative health and nutrition were the only way through which Ghanaians could increase their life expectancy.
The conference, which was on the theme: “Regenerative Health and the Nurse Manager”, was being organised by the Ministry of Health, in partnership with the African Hebrew Development Agency in Dimona, Israel, and it was expected to bring together 120 senior nurse managers from the Ghana Health Service, private institutions, the police, military, fire service, prisons, universities, ports and harbours, mines and teaching hospitals across the country.
The conference was expected to empower the participants with regenerative health, nursing administration and management skills.
Major Quarshigah said “it is possible for us to regenerate what we have degenerated over the years”, adding that “we can, if we choose to extend our life expectancy”.
He consequently warned youngmen who took aphrodisiacs to desist from such practice, saying that such substances caused toxic waste in one’s system, which in turn, create more health problems for people.
He said presently, hospitals across the country were overwhelmed with patients who reported that there with preventable diseases and avoidable injuries from their own unwholesome lifestyles.
The Chief Nursing Officer, Mrs Mary Osae-Addae, said the conference, which was a yearly programme, had dedicated this year’s conference to introducing the concept of regenerative health to both new and old senior nursing managers so as to enhance the health status of their clients.
She was also of the view that most nurses had little knowledge on regenerative health and nutrition programmes and, therefore, there was the need for them to be introduced to it for replication in their various outfits.
Mrs Osae-Addae said the conference would also give them the opportunity to deliberate on issues concerning nursing activities in the country.
The President of the Ghana Registered Nurses Association, Mrs Alice Asare Allotey, said most diseases in the country were preventable, adding that if nurses were made to spearhead their eradication, it would go a long way to help patients to adopt them.
She called on her colleagues to lead by example, saying that “just as we demand better conditions of service, the onus lies on us to deliver up to expectation”.
Story Rebecca Quaicoe Duho
THE Minister of Health, Major (rtd) Courage Quarshigah, has called on Ghanaians to practise regenerative health and healthy lifestyles to increase their life expectancy from the present 57 years.
He said it behoved people to go back to the basics and practise regenerative diet as well as personal hygiene, if they wanted to live longer.
Major Quarshigah, who made the call at the opening of a five-day conference for senior nursing officers, said regenerative health and nutrition were the only way through which Ghanaians could increase their life expectancy.
The conference, which was on the theme: “Regenerative Health and the Nurse Manager”, was being organised by the Ministry of Health, in partnership with the African Hebrew Development Agency in Dimona, Israel, and it was expected to bring together 120 senior nurse managers from the Ghana Health Service, private institutions, the police, military, fire service, prisons, universities, ports and harbours, mines and teaching hospitals across the country.
The conference was expected to empower the participants with regenerative health, nursing administration and management skills.
Major Quarshigah said “it is possible for us to regenerate what we have degenerated over the years”, adding that “we can, if we choose to extend our life expectancy”.
He consequently warned youngmen who took aphrodisiacs to desist from such practice, saying that such substances caused toxic waste in one’s system, which in turn, create more health problems for people.
He said presently, hospitals across the country were overwhelmed with patients who reported that there with preventable diseases and avoidable injuries from their own unwholesome lifestyles.
The Chief Nursing Officer, Mrs Mary Osae-Addae, said the conference, which was a yearly programme, had dedicated this year’s conference to introducing the concept of regenerative health to both new and old senior nursing managers so as to enhance the health status of their clients.
She was also of the view that most nurses had little knowledge on regenerative health and nutrition programmes and, therefore, there was the need for them to be introduced to it for replication in their various outfits.
Mrs Osae-Addae said the conference would also give them the opportunity to deliberate on issues concerning nursing activities in the country.
The President of the Ghana Registered Nurses Association, Mrs Alice Asare Allotey, said most diseases in the country were preventable, adding that if nurses were made to spearhead their eradication, it would go a long way to help patients to adopt them.
She called on her colleagues to lead by example, saying that “just as we demand better conditions of service, the onus lies on us to deliver up to expectation”.
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