Tamale, April 10, GNA - Development partners in the country, have appealed for more logistical and financial support for the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA), to accelerate progress in its operational areas especially on health.
Madam Akua Kwateng-Addo, Health Director at United States Agency for International Development, made the appeal in Tamale at the opening of a two-day SADA zone high level health forum.
It was organised by SADA with the support of five development partners.
The forum on the theme: 'Bridging the equity gap in health delivery in the SADA zone,' is aimed at dialoguing with development partners, experts from the health sector, members of parliament from the SADA Ecological zone as well as regional ministers of the Upper East, Upper West, Northern and the Brong- Ahafo Regions.
The objective was also to examine how partners and stakeholders on health could accelerate progress in the SADA zone so that Ghanaians would be able to access quality healthcare especially pregnant women to deliver their babies with skilled health personnel.
Madam Kwateng-Addo speaking on behalf of development partners, observed that it is important for SADA to work across other government structures to bring more cohesiveness of approach, strong leadership and more coordination to accelerate progress in health.
She said SADA's comparative advantage and role should be geared towards galvanising government, development partners and civil society resources to accelerate health development while empowering existing structures to change the status quo.
She said: 'We as development partners, we need to look more closely at how we can work together cohesively with the zonal, regional and district institutions', to help SADA to succeed adding: 'We need a paradigm shift in our health development agenda by working together to make sure the SADA ecological zone is a priority for health."
She said once resources are moving to the north, there is the need for the nation to examine carefully how health delivery, health development and poverty reduction could be done better, which calls for the determination of how SADA should work across other structures.
Mr Charles Abugre, Chief Executive Officer of SADA said a 20-year strategic plan was developed in 2010 while a five-year business development plan is also available to roll-out the strategy.
He expressed the need for stakeholder and development partner support for SADA to succeed.
He said SADA had also initiated the process of developing a framework for spatial planning with the Town and Country Planning Department to feed into a master planning exercise, which has been planned to kick-off soon by bringing experts across sectors.
He announced that before the close of the year, SADA is aiming to have offices in all five Regional Coordinating Councils (RCC) with office staff of about five to focus on coordinating roles of the RCCs by building and maintaining information platforms for learning and for monitoring and Evaluation.
Alhaji Limuna Mohammed-Muniru, Northern Regional Minister in a speech read on his behalf called for collective efforts to work to reduce the high rate of malnutrition and under five mortality rates in the SADA zone.
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