Meeting MDG 4&5 by 2015: 30 health workers across West Africa receive training

Thirty (30) health workers from across West Africa have received a one week intensive training at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration, to help meet the Millennium Development Goals.

The group is expected to tackle issues of HIV, maternal and child mortality among others.

The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – which range from halving extreme poverty rates to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education, all by the target date of 2015 – form a blueprint agreed to by all countries and all the world's leading development institutions.

Millennium development goal Four (4) for instance is aimed at reducing child mortality by two thirds between 1990 and 2015.

Goal five is targeted at improving maternal health between 1990 and 2015.

It is just two years to the targeted 2015 date and most West African countries are still battling with achieving goals Four (4) and Five (5).

The one week training of managers of healthcare at various West African countries looked at strategic ways at improving healthcare and meeting the 2015 deadline.

Members were taken through capacity building in management and leadership in order to develop competencies to scale up higher quality of care, treatment, support and health prevention in addressing national health priorities.

A project manager, Professor Victor Tabbush, is hopeful the team will help speed up the process of meeting goals Four (4) and Five (5).

"The team shared their peculiar challenges in reducing child and maternal mortality and we shared best practices and ways we can speed up our efforts in meeting Goals 4 and 5. We are confident this will go a long way to assist West African countries," Professor Victor Tabbush noted.

"The team is made up of managers of health sectors and so they are the mangers of change and will definitely make an impact in their various countries. The group acknowledged the need for health sectors to be well resourced with new technologies in order to handle emergency cases with speed and precision," said Dr. Anthony Mawuli Sallar, a lecturer at GIMPA.

The training was on the theme, strengthening leadership and management to address national health priorities.