A one-week Management Development Training programme for managers and leaders of health care organizations in West Africa is underway in Accra.

The objective of the programme is to provide various ministries of health with the needed management and leadership capacity to implement their shared national health priorities in an efficient manner.

The programme, which started from November 14 to 21 is made up of one participant each from Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Cameroon.

The programme was hosted by Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) in collaboration with the University of California (UCLA), the Anderson School of Management in the USA and funded by Johnson and Johnson, a health manufacturing products company in Africa.

The participants are being treated to topics such as health system information, social marketing, project management and ethics and corruption.

Dr Victor Bampoe, Deputy Minister of Health, noted that good management and strong leadership were needed to address the inefficiencies in the health system in West Africa.

Dr Bampoe said health managers require the right skills in time management, team work and decision making, motivating staff, human and financial resource management, monitoring and evaluation to raise the quality of health care in Africa.

He said health managers’ face challenges in working in an unstable environment, calling on Africa leaders to provide enabling environment and raise the quality of healthcare management for better service delivery.

The Deputy Minister urged the participants to be disciplined and use the knowledge acquired at the end of the training to cause a change in their various countries for improved health care delivery.

Dr Bampoe said the participants would have the opportunity to undertake a Community Healthcare Improvement Project, where participants go out and implement what they have been exposed to at the training.

Professor Philip Osei Duku, Deputy Rector of GIMPA, said the institute is one of the foremost in development training programmes and urged the participants to strive hard to learn and impart the knowledge acquired to their countries.

Mr Rene Kiamba, Manager, Sub-Saharah Africa Corporate Contributions at Johnson and Johnson, said their outfits was thrilled to fund the programme because its focus was on making life-changing, long-term differences in human health by targeting the world’s major health-related issues.