By Nathaniel Nartey
The West Africa Health Organization, WAHO Strategic plan dubbed ‘Vision 2030’ is expected to be adopted by the ECOWAS Member States on February 25, 2022.
This follows High-Level ECOWAS universal Health Coverage of Health Ministers in Accra. Ghana’s Minister of Health, Kweku Agyeman Manu and the Director-General of the West Africa Health Organization, WAHO Prof Stanley Okolo explained that Vision 2030 will focus on health security within the sub-region to find solutions to the numerous outbreaks of diseases that have hit member states in the past years.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of the Summit, Minister of Health, Agyeman Manu described the WAHO Vision 2030 policy document as a game-changer.
Ministers of Health from ECOWAS Member States have converged on Accra for a three-day summit to adopt the West African Health Organization, WAHO Vision 2030. This follows a similar gathering of the Assembly of Health Ministers of ECOWAS 4 months ago in Abuja. When adopted, the WAHO vision 2030 will replace vision 2020, which lasted between 2016 and 2020. Director-General of the West African Health Organization, WAHO Prof Stanley Okolo explained that the organisation took cognisance of the recurrence of outbreaks in the sub-region in drafting the vision 2030 policy document.
“We have seen that our region is embedded with a lot of outbreaks of epidemics. We have the Covid-19 which is global now but you may not realise that while we are fighting that one we have lassa fever, we have cholera which has killed more people and Ebola has come and gone. So, it is vitally important that we have an eye to how we prepare and do surveillance to respond rapidly to some of these threats”.
The Minister of Health and Chairperson of the Assembly of Health Ministers in the Sub-region Kweku Agyeman Manu said the WAHO Vision 2030 will address some challenges in WAHO vision 2020 such as bureaucracy and lack of resources.
”WAHO still faces some challenges which have been heightened during the Covid-19 pandemic. Key amongst these are lack of resources, human and financial, limited central oversight and regional coordination and bureaucracy. These among other systemic inefficiencies have necessitated the need for a new strategic duration hence the new Vision 2030″.
The Three-day summit ends Friday, February 25, 2022 by which time the WAHO Vision 2030 should have been adopted and sent to the ECOWAS Heads of States for ratification.