ARMS project records successes in the health sector

Advocacy for Resources for Malaria Stoppage Initiative (ARMS) has recorded significant impact in the country’s health sector, showing impressive gains in reducing malaria cases, behavioural change and promoting the use of insecticide treated bed nets.

ARMS aims at reducing malaria prevalence by advocating for malaria testing with Malaria Rapid Diagnostic Test (RDTs) before treatment and resource mobilizations at the regional, district and community levels.

Through its activities, ARMS has been able to reach and sensitise more than 1.51 million healthcare seekers in the ten regions on issues relating to malaria.

Mrs Cecilia Senoo, the Executive Director of Hope For Future Generations (HFFG), a non-governmental organisation, in a speech read on her behalf at the ARMS Close-Out meeting in Accra, said the HFFG since its inception in 2001, has continuously worked to reach urban, rural and under-served communities through its interventions.

She said the aim is to enable members of these communities to be adequately informed and empowered to enable them take critical decisions that would improve their quality of life.

Mrs Senoo said reducing malaria cases in communities has equally contributed to better economic status of families, communities and the entire country.

She commended the stakeholders for their support and collaboration and urged them to not let the end of the project become an end of their passion and interest in improving the lives of community members, but rather the beginning of a community led, sustained effort to build on the gains of the ARMS project and reap even greater benefits.

“This project has demonstrated that we have the tools we need to prevent, diagnose and treat malaria, but we need more – more funding, better preparation and planning, and greater political will. This is why continuous advocacy by district assemblies and the malaria ambassadors matter, even after the project,” she said.

Madam Gladys Tetteh Yeboah, the Programme Manager for HFFG, said funding trends by the public sector and donors are dwindling, leaving an annual funding gap of about $2.6 billion dollars for malaria prevention from 2011 to 2020.

This, she said, calls for advocacy to enhance domestic funding for malaria.

The one-year project, which spans July 2016 to June 2017 was implemented by a consortium of three organisations led by Hope For Future Generations (HFFG), a non-governmental organisation (NGO), Institute of Social Research and Development; and Youth Development, Research and Innovation Centre and supported by UKAID, through Palladium.

The project mobilised 10,259 healthcare service providers to sensitize the community members as well as the formation of District Malaria Advocacy Groups (DMAG) and Community Malaria Ambassadors (CMA) who were trained to help in the exercise.

Representatives of the DMAG and CMA from districts of the Greater Accra Region where the malaria exercise was conducted, shared success stories and experiences from the field.

GNA

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