The committee, comprising stakeholders from diverse backgrounds of expertise, is expected to enhance the national drive of empowering people and communities to take control of their health by adopting healthy lifestyles.

The committee is also tasked to foster improved communication, cooperation and collaboration among stakeholders, while harnessing and coordinating advisory resources of key stakeholders to improve health and well-being.

Formed in June 2010 with support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the ICC-HP aims at harnessing and coordinating the advisory resources of key stakeholders to enhance health and well-being. 

Inauguration

Inaugurating the committee in Tamale, a former Director of Health Promotion Division at the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Da-Costa Aboagye, indicated that the formation of such committees to boost health promotion had become more crucial with the rise in the prevalence of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs).

Enhancing health promotion, he said would also help address the menace of misinformation and disinformation to improve health outcomes.

"The committee will work to support the Regional Health Directorate in reducing incidents of diabetes, hypertension, stroke, teenage pregnancy and all other related diseases,” he noted. 

Healthy lifestyle

For her part, the Chairperson of the National Inter-Agency Coordinating Committee for Health Promotion, Prof. Elsie Effah Kaufmann, said the committee would adopt strategic ways and undertake activities to help people adopt healthy lifestyles in line with the National Health Promotion Strategy.

She added that the committee would mobilise resources for health and ensure that its programmes fit into the national health promotion strategy.

The Northern Regional Director of the GHS, Dr Abdulai Abukari,  said the three regions were faced with distinct health challenges which necessitated concerted efforts to address them effectively.