Project News

The project conducted the 2nd national Monitoring and Supervision (M&S) between February to October 2021 in all 16 Regions, 48 districts, and 146 health facilities.

The project conducted the first M&S in 2019 and planned the second M&S in 2020. However, it was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and finally resumed in February 2021.

The monitoring teams, consisting of JICA experts, national, regional, and district facilitators, visited the Regional Health Directorate, three District Health Directorates, and an average of 9 health facilities in each region weekly. The team conducted monitoring and on-site coaching to health workers.

We conducted the 2nd M&S with two special considerations. We needed to pay close attention to the situation of COVID-19 infection risk mitigation measures. We also paid attention to the safety measures when traveling in the five northern regions due to the deteriorating security situation in the neighboring country of Burkina Faso. It took us a lot of coordination and support from the visiting Regions and districts and the monitoring team.

The major results of the 2nd National M&S were as followings:

• MCH RB was used at all the visited facilities at the monitoring (N=146).
• The date of delivery was recorded at 83% nationwide.
• Plotting, the recording rate of a child's length/height improved to 23% nationwide.
• 81% of mothers received nutrition counselling services and 96% of them could recall what health workers advised.

Good practices observed at the 2nd National M&S were:

• WhatsApp group was created for mothers to post their questions or concerns regarding the care of the child, especially on messages in the MCH RB.
• The district assembly helped in printing MCH RB for the district
• Coding of MCH RB at the regional and sub-regional levels to track the distribution of the books

Challenges faced at the 2nd M&S were

• Incomplete filling of the book, especially Nutrition counselling tables and CoC cards
• Absence or inadequate number of other logistics-Anthropometric equipment,
• Shortage of MCH RB

M&S was an opportunity for us to capture the progress and achievement of the effective use of MCH RB throughout the country. The data confirmed that the "provision of care" and women's "experiences of care" improved adequately with the MCH RB in Ghana.

GHS will sustain the M&S after the completion of the project. GHS already shared the checklist for monitoring with other partners who support GHS in the M&S training. We hope that the continuous M&S will further strengthen health workers' skills and health systems to ensure quality COC for all mothers and children in Ghana.

On-site coaching of the length measurement skills

Observation of counseling skills