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The Ghana Civil Society Platform on Oil and Gas in collaboration with the Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC) and OXFAM- America has launched Ghana’s Readiness Report Card in Accra.

The report, titled; “Ghana’s Oil Boom- A Readiness Report Card”, seeks to reveal Ghana’s readiness to better manage its hydrocarbon resources.

In a welcome address by the vice chairperson of the Civil Society Platform on Oil and Gas, Mrs. Nana Ama Yirrah said, the Society was formed in 2010 to create a forum for civil society engagement on oil and gas issues at the time the country was preparing for oil production.

She stated that since its inception, the platform has worked to ensure the development of appropriate policies, legislations and institutional mechanisms for managing the petroleum resources of which opinions are essential for transparent, accountable and sustainable management of Ghana’s oil and gas for the benefit of citizens.

The Deputy Minister for Energy, Hon. Inusah Fuseini, in his keynote address, announced that through the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, a legal and institutional frame work for the management of the oil and gas sector to address the challenges facing the energy sector has been instituted.

He added that transparency and accountability is the corner stone of good governance, the abstinence of which breeds speculation and corruption.

The Minister added that government at the onset of the discovery of oil and gas in commercial quantities was challenged to come out with policies to address some critical areas as economic challenges, supply chain contract and content, environmental management, downstream processing and energy security.

The Minister stressed that the launch of the Ghana Readiness Report Card by the civil society platform on oil and gas is a positive step towards the commitment to accountable and transparent governance.

Source: ISD (Tall Asiedu Ansah)

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Category: Organizations, foriegn

Extending Health Insurance: Effects of the National Health Insurance Scheme in Ghana

There is considerable interest in exploring the potential of social health insurance to increase access to and affordability of health care in Africa. Social health insurance is seen as one of the health financing approaches with a strong potential to share risks across population groups and time (Wagstaff, 2009).

As membership is mandatory, it avoids many of the problems of adverse selection which smaller, voluntary health insurance schemes face. A number of African countries are currently experimenting with different approaches, including Nigeria, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania and Ghana. As these schemes are still young and evolving, few have yet been systematically evaluated. We focus on the recent experience of Ghana, where a National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) was passed into law in 2003 and fully implemented from late 2005 (Agyepong and Adjei, 2008; Abekah-Nkrumah et al., 2009). Even though there is evidence of large coverage levels (Witter and Garshong, 2009) there is still lack of evidence of the effect of the NHIS on out-of pocket expenditures, health care demand, health status and labor productivity.

This paper uses the variation over time and enrolment induced by the National Health Insurance to asses the impact of the Scheme. We present evidence on how the National Health Insurance Scheme affected the utilization of health care services and out-of-pocket expenses.

Category: Organizations, foriegn

Lindsey Graham,New Republican Ally of US Foreign Aid Advocates

Amid a challenging budget environment, the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development have found an ally in Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

Graham, who is expected to be named the ranking Republican on the Senate Appropriations' State and Foreign Operations subcommittee, said he will fight for resources for U.S. diplomatic and development efforts.

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Category: Organizations, foriegn

DfID Takes Lead in Aid Transparency Campaign

On Jan. 28, the U.K. Department for International Development became the first donor nation to publish its aid information in the International Aid Transparency Initiative registry.

The registry is a “hub for international development data published by agencies, community orgranisations and partner countries in a standard, open format,” according to its website.

Donors in the last two years have been working on a standard for disclosing aid information in a comprehensive, accessible, timely, and comparable manner.

The IATI steering committee will meet on Feb. 9 to finalize the details of the standard, according to aid transparency advocate Publish What You Fund.

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Category: Organizations, foriegn

The Evolving Global Aid Architecture

This summary report offers a synthesis of the recommendations and conclusions emerging from the plenaries and roundtables of the workshop on the evolving global aid architecture.

The workshop was an opportunity for different stakeholders to engage directly in the preparation process for the HLF-4. It recognized the need to evolve new norms, beyond the Paris Declaration targets set for 2010, to accommodate the diversity of players, challenges and approaches involved in development cooperation.

A full record of the agenda, policy briefs, and recommendations is available at www.odakorea.go.kr/eng/news/News/List.php