Indigenous Women Empowerment Network (IWEN Ghana), an indigenous women’s rights organisation has secured funding support of ¢100,000 from the KGL Foundation to promote sexual, maternal and newborn health (SMNH) in the Ada West District of the Greater Accra Region.

The 12-month project themed ‘’Improving Sexual, Maternal and Newborn Health through Social Accountability and Community Mobilisation” seeks to Improve sexual, maternal and newborn health for 2,500 women of reproductive age in the Ada West District.

In an interview, the Co-Founder and Executive Director of IWEN Ghana, Celestina Maame Esi Andoh, said the project would inform, empower and mobilise women in communities to be prepared to manage pregnancy and childbirth and further seek quality SMNH services when needed.

‘’This project will positively affect the livelihood of women within Ada West by reducing maternal mortality and morbidity and related costs of emergency health care,’’ Ms Andoh explained.

She added, ‘’Better health for women will increase women’s productivity and the likelihood their children will receive optimum care and education’’.

The Executive Director said the intervention would ensure the provision of essential SMNH care to women, newborns and children at all levels of services through a public-community partnership approach.

She noted that this would help reduce newborn and maternal deaths in the district.

Ms Andoh added it would accelerate progress towards SDG 3, which focuses on reducing the global maternal mortality ratio to less than 70 per 100,000 live births in 2030.

According to Ms Andoh, when a mother chooses to deliver her baby outside the formal health facility, she endangers her life and that of her baby if complications develop.

She noted that IWEN Ghana supports programmes and services to help reduce such preventable deaths in the Ada West district.

‘’You know, according to the 2020 annual report by the Ghana Health Service, the Ada West district performed poorly in terms of its health indicators concerning maternal, neonatal and child health services.

That is why we at IWEN Ghana have resolved to help reverse the situation within the district,’’ she stated.

The Project Manager of IWEN Ghana, Edward Ayabilah, observed that Ada West is one of the most deprived districts in the Greater Accra region, bedevilled with many social challenges, including health care delivery. 

According to him, the district recorded the highest teenage pregnancy cases in the region in a 2021 Ghana Education Service report.

‘’It is for this reason that we have secured this project to promote sexual, maternal and newborn health to benefit some 2,500 women of reproductive age in the Ada West District.”