April 20, 2011 – Francis Ansong
This week, I represent Ghana in the ongoing battle against Africa’s outsized disease burden.
The author, Francis Ansong, a Research Assistant in The Whitaker Group’s Accra office, is pictured with Dr. Frank Nyonator, Ghana’s Director of Policy, Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation - Ministry of Health.
On April 10th, I traveled from my home in Accra, Ghana to Washington D.C. to join a group of senior African health officials – leaders from Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Nigeria, Swaziland and Uganda – and take part in Global Health Progress’ (GHP’s) 4th Annual Health Delegation.
Through GHP, African health officials meet with U.S. government representatives, members of the donor community, the private sector, NGOs and universities, to talk with global health stakeholders and work to align their priorities in the fight to overcome Africa’s health challenges.
Although the meetings are critical for partners to connect – some who have talked only at a distance before this opportunity allowed them to meet face-to-face – it is the chance to speak directly and openly about Africa’s health needs that draws delegates to Washington D.C. and New York City each year. And, for me, it was inspiring to hear these leaders speak first-hand about their experiences at the front lines and how they’ve overcome hurdles to achieve success.
Leading health officials from eight sub-Saharan African countries have just completed a weeklong visit to Washington (June 21 to June 25) hosted by Global Health Progress (GHP), where they highlighted successful public-private partnerships in addressing critical health challenges in Africa and stressed the need for continued US public support to strengthen African health care systems. 
The United Nations Conference on Trade Development (UNCTAD) released its World Investment Report 2009 on September 17, subtitled “Transnational Corporations, Agricultural Production and Development.” The Report finds substantial decreases in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) around the globe due to the recession, but shows impressive pre-recession FDI growth in Africa in 2008 that positions the continent to be a strong investment destination once global economies begin to recover. 
Just hours before President Barack Obama addressed a joint meeting of Congress on February 24 to publicly disclose details of his economic rescue plan, U.S. Congressional leaders, representatives of African Embassies, World Bank President Robert Zoellick and American business, policy and nongovernmental organization leaders gathered on Capitol Hill to pay tribute to Rosa Whitaker on her birthday and the sixth anniversary of The Whitaker Group (TWG), the company she founded in 2003. More than 150 people, including distinguished American and African political and business leaders, paid tribute to TWG for driving more than $1 billion in trade, investment and revenue streams to Africa during the past six years. 
Rosa Whitaker, President and CEO of The Whitaker Group (TWG), is pleased to announce a major expansion of its operations with the opening of TWG’s West Africa office in Accra, Ghana. “Since the founding of TWG in 2003, we have seen extraordinary growth in the volume of trade between the United States and West Africa. 
Ghanaians, who led the decolonization of Africa more than 50 years ago, have once again proved they are in the vanguard of the continent’s political development by peacefully electing opposition leader Prof. John Evans Atta Mills President. The election made history because Ghana is only the second African nation (after Benin) that has twice achieved a peaceful transition of power through the ballot box. It was the fifth consecutive time Ghanaians have gone to the polls to democratically elect a leader. 
Government representatives from more than 100 nations, heads of multilateral and bilateral development organizations and members of civil society met in Accra in September to further efforts begun in Paris in 2005 to make aid to developing countries more effective by giving those countries greater ownership in managing assistance from the developed world. Delegates at the Third High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness issued the Accra Agenda for Action (AAA), which declared that “developing country governments will take stronger leadership of their own development policies, and will engage with their parliaments and citizens in shaping those policies. Donors will support them by respecting countries’ priorities, investing in their human resources and institutions, making greater use of their systems to deliver aid, and increasing the predictability of aid flows.
