Mr. Labram Musah, National Coordinator of the NCD Alliance Ghana and Executive Director of Vision for Accelerated Sustainable Development, Ghana (VAST Ghana), has been named a 2025 UHC Champion by the global Universal Health Coverage campaign.

He is one of 69 individual champions recognised worldwide for their extraordinary contributions to advancing universal health coverage.

This honour places Mr. Musah among a distinguished global cohort of health advocates, policymakers, and practitioners dedicated to ensuring that every person, everywhere, can access quality health services without facing financial hardship.

Mr. Musah's recognition as an individual champion reflects not only the impact of his work but also the campaign's core spirit: inspiring action, amplifying grassroots voices, and demonstrating that meaningful change is possible through committed community and advocacy collaboration.

Central to this honour and landmark policy achievement with profound implications for millions of Ghanaians was the 2024 Civil Society NCDs Manifesto for Political Parties, which elevated NCDs to the highest levels of national political discourse.

Under Mr. Musah’s leadership, the NCD Alliance Ghana through the NCDs Manifesto successfully advocated for the integration of comprehensive NCD and mental health services into the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) to remove financial barriers.

This recognition further validates the Alliance’s call for political parties to prioritize the treatment, care, and prevention of NCDs as essential developmental issues. By aligning national efforts with the Ghana UHC Roadmap and international treaties, Mr. Musah has ensured that the voices of people living with NCDs and mental health conditions are meaningfully involved in shaping a health system that leaves no one behind.

Furthermore, Mr. Musah is leveraging the VAST Ghana platform to intensify advocacy for sustainable domestic funding and resource mobilization via health excise taxes and recognizing that NCDs and mental health remain critically underfunded.

A key demand was achieved in 2025: the Government of Ghana exempted the National Health Insurance Fund from the list of statutory funds subject to a fiscal cap — a move that protects and strengthens the financial foundation of the country's health insurance system. This progress, alongside the launch of the Ghana Medical Trust Fund and roll-out of the Free Primary Health Care initiative, marks a historic moment for health equity in Ghana.

“Removing caps on the National Health Insurance Fund was a crucial step toward sustainable financing for universal health coverage. Now we must continue strengthening primary health care and ensuring that NCD and mental health services are fully integrated and accessible to all,” states Mr Musah.

Throughout his career, Labram Musah has established himself as one of Ghana's most reliable and respected advocates for health equity, and has amplified the voices of patients, caregivers, and communities who have traditionally been excluded from the health policy dialogue.

His work has consistently centered on the intersection of health financing, primary care, and inclusion of NCD and mental health services in national health coverage frameworks — areas that remain critically underfunded in Ghana and across sub-Saharan Africa.

Through coalition-building, stakeholder engagement, and public campaigns, he has helped shift the national conversation on what universal health coverage must truly look like for ordinary Ghanaians.

The Alliance will continue its work to strengthen primary health care infrastructure as the backbone of Ghana's UHC agenda — championing investment in facilities, the health workforce, and essential medicines at the community level. People with lived experience of NCDs and mental health conditions will remain central to this effort, with the Alliance committed to deepening their meaningful participation in policy design and implementation.

As a 2025 UHC Champion, Mr. Musah also takes on a broader ambassadorial role by sharing Ghana's experiences and lessons with the global health community, inspiring advocates across Africa and beyond, and contributing to the collective momentum toward the goal of health for all by 2030.