Global Health Security Agenda Strategic Planning Meeting

The Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) is a growing partnership of over 64 countries, international and non-governmental organizations that aims to help build countries’ capacity to help create a world safe from infectious disease threats. All this is geared at elevating global health security. As a member of this partnership, the Government of Ghana (GoG) has been working in collaboration with US Government through the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Department of Defense, Department of State and other federal and partners such as the Korean Government through the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) toward achieving International Health Regulations (IHR) 2005 by implementing the GHSA.

Several measures have been put in place by the GoG to ensure the country plays its part. In 2015, the GoG officially committed to the GHSA. In 2016 Ghana was identified as a Phase II GHSA country by the United States for technical and financial support. In the same year a 5-year GHSA roadmap was also developed and completed with the World Health Organization’s Joint External Evaluation.

As part of ensuring Ghana does not stall in fulfilling the country’s obligations to IHR 2005, a 2-day strategic meeting was organized by CDC Ghana from the 28th – 29th November, 2018 to review the Ghana National Action Plan for Health Security (NAPHS) and align the strategic priorities, activities and indicators to the NAPHS. The meeting also gave various stakeholders to interact and further prioritize activities for the 2019-2020 fiscal year. Centre for Health System Strengthening was privileged to be invited/participated as a key stakeholder in Ghana Laboratory system strengthening and microbiology capacity building. Other stakeholders that participated were: Ministry of Health (MoH), Ghana Health Service (GHS), Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NNIMR), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), Association of Public Laboratories (APHL), Integrated Quality Laboratory Service (IQLS), Veterinary Services Department and others. The meeting took place at the Royal Senchi Hotel, Akosombo, Ghana