by Audra Gold

Our approach to cross-sector collaboration involved creating a strategy around a challenge, and then building a stakeholder platform to see where the various sectors could participate to help resolve it. In this case, the challenge was that a lack of sanitation infrastructure in Old Fadama was perpetuating Cholera outbreaks. Because of these repeated outbreaks the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (municipal government) chose to enroll and resource the collaboration.

The video below provides the perspective of Dr. Simpson Boateng, the former director of Public Health at the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, on how joining and building the cross-sector collaboration helped overcome one of the challenges Old Fadama was facing.

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Audra Gold, Global Health Research Associate for Georgetown’s Initiative on Health and Peace, provides strategic global health guidance and research support for the cross-sector collaboration project in Accra, Ghana. Her professional interests are in international health policy, and health system strengthening through strategic public-private partnerships to improve the public health of vulnerable populations. She previously supported the publication of articles in The Lancet, The New England Journal of Medicine, and JAMA, regarding the Global Burden of Disease for the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation. Audra holds a Master’s of Science in Global Health from Georgetown University.

 

Read previous posts in this series:

• Using Participatory Action Research to Overcome Public Health Obstacles
• Introducing a New Series: Cross-Sector Collaboration in Accra, Ghana
• Video: Utilizing Cross-Sector Collaboration to Improve Community Health in an Urban Slum in Accra, Ghana