The project focuses on three areas, including improving delivery of essential health services to mothers, pregnant women, newborns and children under five and the utilisation of essential health services by mothers, pregnant women, newborns and children under five.

The Promoting Maternal, Newborn, Infant and Child Sustainable Health Efforts (PROMISE) project is being implemented by the Christian Children’s Fund of Canada (CCFC), an international Non-governmental Organisation (NGO), with funding from Global Affairs Canada.

Madam Esenam Kavi, the Project Manager in-charge of PROMISE at CCFC, who gave details of the project at a media encounter in Tamale, said CCFC would work with health facilities in the beneficiary districts to ensure improved delivery of essential health services to mothers, pregnant women, newborns and children under five to reduce maternal and infant mortality.

Madam Kavi said the Project would also focus on increasing consumption of nutritious foods and supplements by mothers, pregnant women, newborns and children under five. She said the key strategies of the PROMISE project were “Strengthening of the health system to improve the quality of care, coupled with the improvement of district and community level structures through capacity building and behaviour change communication”.

She added: “PROMISE will directly and indirectly impact the lives of over 150,000 beneficiaries including children, women and men”. Officials of CCFC later took journalists on a tour to visit one of its support projects, which is a health facility, being built to replace the old Wantugu Health Centre in the Tolon District.

However, work on the new health facility has stalled because of lack of funds. Mr Yussif Issah Techie, a nurse at Wantugu Health Centre, appealed to authorities to the authorities to support the NGO to complete the new health centre on time to ensure improved health care delivery to residents.

Mr George Baiden, the Country Director of CCFC, spoke about some of CCFC’s interventions this year, which included supporting seriously sick children to seek medical care; rescuing children from children labour and putting them back to school; skills training for some boys and girls to empower them economically to avoid child marriages, amongst others. The project would end in 2020.