UG Leads Ghana’s Role in USD 13.5 Million Funded Global Universal Health Coverage Project

The University of Ghana is playing a leading national role in a major international research collaboration aimed at strengthening fair and evidence based decision making on the path to Universal Health Coverage in low and middle income countries.

The five year project, Fair Choices on the Path to UHC In Times of Change 2026 to 2030, has been awarded NOK 129 million, approximately USD 13.5 million, in funding by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad). The project is led globally by Professor Kjell Arne Johansson of the Bergen Centre for Ethics and Priority Setting in Health at the University of Bergen in Norway.

The University of Ghana’s participation reflects its vision of achieving global impact through impactful research, strategic engagement and partnerships and sustainable research mobilisation and stewardship. Through this collaboration, the University is contributing policy relevant evidence to address one of the most pressing challenges in global health, how countries can set fair and effective health priorities in the face of shrinking development aid and increasing health needs.

The project spans multiple countries, including Ghana, Tanzania, Nepal and Ethiopia, with the University of Ghana leading its implementation in Ghana. The Ghana component is being carried out in partnership with the Ministry of Health, the Ghana Health Service and the National Health Insurance Authority, with a project secretariat housed at the University’s School of Public Health.

Under this arrangement, the University will support national institutions to strengthen health priority setting processes by providing context specific, evidence based analysis to inform policy decisions. The work seeks to improve the legitimacy, effectiveness, efficiency and fairness of health policy choices, particularly within constrained budgets.

The Ghana component of the project is led by Prof. Kwasi Torpey, Dean of the School of Public Health and Country Lead and Principal Investigator, Prof. Genevieve Aryeetey, Dr. Leonard Baatiema and Dr. Richmond Owusu, all of the School of Public Health.

The University of Ghana brings multidisciplinary expertise to the collaboration, drawing from public health, global health leadership, health systems research, health financing, health policy and health economics. This breadth of expertise positions the University to contribute meaningfully to both the technical and ethical dimensions of priority setting in health. The deep engagement of its researchers within Ghana’s health system through advisory roles, technical committees and governance structures ensures that project activities and outputs are grounded in the country’s policy environment.

By leading implementation in Ghana, the University is ensuring that evidence generation and policy recommendations are locally relevant and responsive to the realities of the national health system. Leveraging existing relationships with policymakers and implementers, the team will align research findings with ongoing health reforms and decision making processes.

To promote evidence uptake, the project has established a Steering Committee and a Technical Working Group with representation from senior leadership at the University of Ghana, the Ministry of Health, the Ghana Health Service and the National Health Insurance Authority. These structures are intended to facilitate dialogue between researchers and policymakers and to support the translation of research into actionable policy decisions.

Globally, the project seeks to support countries as they navigate demographic transitions and significant reductions in donor funding. By advancing economic evaluation, applied ethics, inclusive deliberation and locally constructed value frameworks, it aims to help countries allocate limited resources more efficiently while upholding principles of fairness and equity. The initiative builds on the longstanding mission of the Bergen Centre for Ethics and Priority Setting in Health to promote ethical, cost effective and evidence informed priority setting, while strengthening domestic research and policy capacity in low and middle income countries to support sustainable progress toward Universal Health Coverage.

Through this collaboration, the University of Ghana continues to position itself as a key contributor to global health research and policy while directly supporting national and regional development through evidence informed decision making.