ACCRA, Ghana, January 8, 2013/African Press Organization (APO)/ — The European Union (EU) in Ghana has disbursed close to EUR 16 million to the Government of Ghana. This disbursement comprises of 10M € Sector Budget Support for the Ministry of Health and 5.65 M € General Budget Support under Ghana’s Multi-Donor Budget Support (MDBS ) framework.
In the framework of the European Union’s existing Financing Agreement with Ghana, the amount of 10M€ equivalent to 25,000,000 GHS released to the treasury for onward transmission to the Ministry of Health will support the implementation of the MDG Accelerated Framework and Country Action Plan developed to combat maternal mortality.
It constitutes the first tranche (three more instalments to follow for the years 2013-2015) of a program amounting to a total of 52M€ or 130,000,000 GHS. The funds will support improvements in skilled birth attendance, emergency obstetric and newborn care as well as family planning measures. It is expected that with this additional funding, Ghana will be able to reduce the unacceptable high burden of mothers dying while giving birth and arrive at 185 deaths per 100,000 live births by 2015 (MDG5 Goal).
The funding for maternal health comes in addition to the roughly 400 M€ the European Union is providing to Ghana over the period 2007-2013. It was mobilised as additional funding for those countries which were most off-track in achieving some of the MDGs.
As part of earlier commitments under its MDG-Contract since 2009, the European Union has been providing General Budget Support to the Government of Ghana in the framework of the Multi Donor Budget Support with the aim of contributing to sustainable growth and poverty reduction in Ghana, including the achievement of the MDGs.
In this regard the European Union is pleased to have effected another disbursement of 5.65 M€ equivalent to 14,000,000 GHS to complement Government’s own domestically generated revenues and to facilitate the implementation of the national budget and its associated public expenditure plans to sustainably reduce poverty. In July 2012, the EU already released 24 M€ from the MDG-Contract to the Government’s Treasury account, in accordance with MDBS procedures.
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