AIDS Commission Strengthens M&E Capacity


Dr Angel El-Adas addressing the participants at the closing ceremony

The Ghana Aids Commission, in its quest to strengthen the monitoring and evaluation of its programmes has organised a two week workshop for selected individuals from the HIV AIDS national response team.

The monitoring and evaluation course formed part of a five year HIV and AIDS Monitoring and Evaluation (GHAME) training organised by the Ghana Aids Commission (GAC) with support from the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, USA, Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM), USA and the School of Public Health (SPH), University of Ghana.

It was aimed at giving participants the skills necessary to go out into the community and help HIV/AIDS programmes to be successful through effective monitoring and evaluation.

When the project and training classes started in 2010, it originally had 50 participants.  By 2010, the number of participants in the course had grown to almost 150.

The Director General of GAC, Dr Angela El-Adas, addressing participants at the closing ceremony of the last course in Accra described GHAME’s mission as one that seeks to ‘measure, evaluate, and generate’ strategies of HIV prevention, awareness, and destigmatisation.

She said the programme had helped the Commission to bring people together and give them hands-on capacity to impact the M&E system in the country.

‘It is difficult to make progress when you don’t know who you are and this programme has come to address that gap in monitoring our progress,’ she said.

She, therefore, expressed her appreciation to the various institutions and individuals who have helped in the success of the five year programme.

Dr El-Adas was, however, hopeful the challenge of  funding GHAME would be addressed,  referring to the variety of organisations involved – the National HIV and AIDS response, GAC, CDC, MSM, and the University of Ghana’s School of Public Health.

Dr Phyllis Dako-Gyeke from the School of Public Health (SPH) presenting the overview of the project listed factors such as team teaching, learning by doing and a blend of both classroom education and fieldwork as reasons why the programme was so successful.

She said there would be follow-ups after participant’s completion of the programme.

‘Three months after any new work plan is implemented, it is required to present a progress report,’ she said.

The Dean of School of Public Health, Prof Richard Adanu, added that collaboration is the only key to the programme’s success.

‘Sometimes for programmes to be successful, we need champions,’ he said.

By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri
 
 

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