Accra, Sept 1, GNA - Ghana and the country's development partners, have signed an aide memoir following the 2005 review of work in the sector. The Minister of Health, Major Courage Quashigah (rtd) and representatives of the development partners including the out-going Netherlands Ambassador, the Japanese Ambassador, Heads of Delegation and United Nations Agencies signed the memoir.

A statement issued in Accra on Thursday, signed by Mr Dan Osman Mwin, Public Relations Officer, said the Minister stressed the Ministry's commitment to achieve all the health related targets in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Major Quashigah said the Government saw health as essential to human capital development and central to the creation of wealth and poverty reduction. This is the reason why the Ministry had adopted the slogan "Creating Wealth Through Health" as the theme for the next health policy, the Minister stated and expressed the hope that the country's development partners would collaborate with the government to implement the new health policy to achieve the targets in the MDGs.

The out-going Netherlands Ambassador, Mr Van Der Wiel on behalf of the development partners, called for Annual Sector Performance Reviews to match results with financial outputs. He welcomed the emphasis in promoting health through a multi-sectoral approach involving the Government, Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and the private sector in the new health policy instead of mainly promoting state health care delivery.

Mr Van Der Wiel noted that a lot of work was needed outside the public health domain on governance issues such as decentralisation, collaboration with all stakeholders fighting corruption in the health sector and public finance and Public Sector Reform to create a balance between investment and recurrent expenditure as well as the management of human resources. He pledged the support of the development partners for the new health policy through stronger harmonisation and alignment with programs, priorities and procedures of the Ministry.