This success story and video was produced for the World Bank Global Platform for Social Accountability in November 2018.
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The Asikiri Community-based Health Planning Services (CHPS) compound in the Upper East Region of Ghana has had some dark days.
Two years ago, the CHPS compound was using one room for all things—from check-ups to deliveries. The multi-purpose room had no running water or electricity, no accommodation for a nurse to stay overnight, and no method of transportation for home visits or if emergency cases needed to be transferred to a larger hospital.
Registered General Nurse Prosper Baidoo said most of their deliveries come at night, and the lack of light made detecting and treating complications very difficult. “If there are some tears, some minor, minor tears, you may not be able to see it with ordinary torch light,” said Baidoo.
During a community dialogue led by SEND Ghana’s Making the Budget Work for Ghana project, which is supported by the Global Partnership for Social Accountability (GPSA), all of that changed.
Project field officers educated Asikiri community members on the district-level budget and encouraged them to take improved service delivery into their own hands. After the dialogue, the community successfully advocated for their assembly to expand the Asikiri community health services, including additional rooms, a water tank, electricity, staff accommodation, and a motorbike.
The community dialogue is part of a four-year project, funded by the World Bank-led GPSA, that aims at improving access to and quality of services in priority programs in the health and education sectors by strengthening social accountability and transparency in the budget process.
Watch this video as Baidoo, the general nurse, sheds more light on the ongoing Asikiri story—one example of the budget working for some of the most vulnerable in Ghana.