The partners, the World Health Organization-Africa Region and the Collaborative Africa Budget Reform Initiative (CABRI), organised the workshop, which targeted the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS.

Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo were the participating states.

It was aimed as fostering and sustaining progress in human development and to improve the level of results generated for the money spent on social sectors.

In a release copied to the Ghana News Agency said evidence showed that social spending was often inefficient and ineffective and there was consensus on the need to correct this situation.

The release said Countries achieved different levels of results with comparable levels of social spending a suggestion that it was possible to obtain greater results from available resources.

The goal of the workshop was to familiarise service chiefs and policy-makers in the social sectors with the concept of Value for Money (VfM) and identify regional best practices for emulation.

The workshop focused on understanding how to achieve improved results with available funds. Five critical aspects of VfM, the five “Es” were evaluated – Economy: minimise the cost of inputs; Efficiency: maximize the outputs delivered from the inputs; Effectiveness: achieve the intended results of the service, project or programme; Equity: ensure public services reach their intended recipients; and Ethics: manage services and programmes with integrity.

It said through active participation, in-depth analysis and dialogue, a collective resolve to take positive actions towards improved VfM practices were made. Mr Fabrics Sergent, AfDB Chief Health Analyst urged participants to keep the conversation going after the workshop to initiate action in their respective countries.

As Africa marches towards implementation of the Bank’s High five development priorities, incorporating VfM into the core of policy-making and strategy implementation remains critical. CABRI Executive Secretary Neil Cole, said to drive sustainable change, we must “show up, speak up, look up, team up, never give up and build others up,”.