Remarks by President John Dramani Mahama to open a Mid-Term Review meeting of the GAVI Alliance October 30, 2013. Stockholm, Sweden. [Wednesday 30 October 2013] Honourable Ministers Ladies and Gentlemen, I would first like to thank GAVI and our hosts, the government of Sweden for the warm hospitality we have received since our arrival yesterday. I am also happy to welcome you to the GAVI Alliance Mid-Term Review. The purpose of the Mid-Term Review is to look at the progress the Alliance has made in delivering against the promises made at the Pledging Conference in June 2011. It is also a time for all of us to reflect on how we can work together to ensure long-term sustainable immunisation programmes are available to everyone no matter where they are born. Today, we will hear about some of the great work that has already been done, but the burden is on all of us to innovate to ensure everyone everywhere has equal access to a healthy childhood, the best chance to receive an education and go on to be a productive member of their community. This is a tall order and we can only do it working together as partners. Global private-public-partnerships such as the GAVI Alliance are critical. We need commitment from both the public and private sectors in both donor and GAVI implementing countries to address these challenges. Ghana is one of the partners in this private-public-partnership, and as a result of this partnership, we have accelerated the uptake of, and will continue to introduce new life-saving vaccines, which are one of the most cost-effective health investments in history. Ghana has been the first GAVI country to introduce two life-saving vaccines simultaneously. In April last year, we introduced vaccines against the two top killers of children under five, pneumonia and diarrhoea caused by rotavirus. On November 4th in Dodowa, we are launching a demonstration project vaccinating girls in four districts against human papillomavirus, which is the leading cause of female cancer deaths in GAVI-eligible countries. With GAVI-support, over the last decade, Ghana has been able to deliver a range of life-saving vaccines that have averted an estimated 700,000 future deaths. We have also implemented an innovative pilot mHealth project with GAVI support, where mobile phone-based applications serve as a communication and educational device to remind patients of upcoming appointments, as well as act as an interface for health workers to enter all service data, including immunisation information. This is a great innovation and we look forward to developing more projects like this which have a real impact on our health systems and the lives of our people. However, this is not a time for us, or any other country, to be complacent. There is still a long way to go to ensure that everyone has equal access to immunisation. Huge challenges remain in Ghana - we are still lagging behind on MDG 4 on child mortality and on MDG 5 on maternal health. There are a number of health system bottlenecks we are working to address with support from the GAVI Alliance and other partners such as training, data quality, supply chain issues and transportation. We are strongly committed to addressing these issues and improving our immunisation and health care, and we are tackling the challenges head-on. We have implemented an MDG Acceleration Framework, and we are dedicated to committing as much of our own resources as possible to addressing these challenges. But we face new challenges every day. One of the greatest challenges facing Ghana at the moment is reaching the new ‘hardest to reach.’ The hardest to reach are no longer in the rural areas. They are in our cities, and more specifically in urban slums. For example, Accra is one of the fastest growing metropolises in Africa. About half of our urban dwellers live in depressed, unplanned areas. We need to find new ways to reach these people. We have to work together to innovate to address these new challenges and we can only do this as a partnership. I ask all of you to also commit, both politically and financially to tackling today’s challenges and to working together to enable countries everywhere to deliver long-term sustainable routine immunisation programmes. I shall conclude by saying this is not just a mid-term review, but one step on the continual path towards securing long-term immunisation programmes. On behalf of the more than four million children who will survive due to this global partnership, I wish to say thank you to GAVI and all its partners. I am proud as a father and leader from a GAVI eligible country to be an Ambassador for GAVI. Thank you for listening to me and I wish you a successful meeting.
Posted on: Wed, 30 Oct 2013 15:25:50 +0000
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