Browsing by Author "Chirawurah, Dennis"

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    Pathways to building cross-border partnership for disease prevention and health promotion in Ghana and Burkina Faso: Kassena-Nankana and P0 Districts
    (2005-11-08) Chirawurah, Dennis
    Decentralized health care delivery place enormous responsibilities on border districts like Kassena Nankana in Ghana and Po in Burkina Faso. The task of addressing the issues of Poverty, inadequate access to care, HIV/AIDs, cerebro - spinal meningitis, malaria and cholera in these districts would be difficult to accomplish unless ways and processes are identified to leverage diverse knowledge, skills, and resources of people and organizations. Diseases have no regard for colonially imposed geo-political boundaries and this study explored pathways by which Kassena Nankana and Po could build cross- border partnership for effective local health action. Through key informant interviews, focus group discussion, observation and document review pathways were delineated for cross-border partnership building. The study identified health directorates, local authorities, security agencies, communities and NGOs for building broad base cross- border partnership. On how a cross-border partnership would work, study participants mentioned memorandum of understanding, regular reviews, informal social interactions and collective ownership of partnership. Furthermore, the partnership would require engaging in identifying, framing and understanding health problems, developing strategies and taking collective actions to solve them. Logistical constraints, differences in personal attitudes and values, language differences, political apathy and poor leadership style came up as critical challenges to building a partnership. A platform to develop and deepen understanding, formulate a vision and engender ownership would push forward the cross-border partnership building process.