ABOUT CHeSS

THE CENTRE FOR HEALTH AND SOCIAL SERVICES - CHeSS

CHeSS is an independent, private, not for profit organization based in Ghana with the objective of providing training, consultancy, advisory and research services in health system strengthening and social protection. Core to CHeSS work is systems and service delivery research that assess the functioning of the health sector. CHeSS’ philosophy is that all health assessment and effective program implementation depends on timely availability of complete data which is carefully analyzed, transformed into policy briefs and made available to the appropriate policy makers and service users. To do this, the organisation provides a platform for experts to interrogate evidence and provide guidance on how the evidence may be used to guide policy transformation and programme implementation. Though barely two years old, the organisation has demonstrated competencies in these areas by undertaking research and project management on behalf of a number of institutions.

In 2010, it organised two large meetings with an average of 300 participants from within and outside Ghana. It also organised a series of policy dissemination meetings to disseminate its own findings using conference, seminar and think tank methods and on behalf of the Ministry of Health and the National Health Insurance Scheme. In a recent six case studies of health policy analysis institutes in Bangladesh, Ghana, India, South Africa, Uganda and Vietnam that included two NGOs, two university and two government-owned policy analysis institutes’ capacity to influence policy dialogue, CHeSS was highly ranked for its ability.

The report of the study recently published in a peer reviewed journal stated that the Government of Ghana through the Ministry of Health and the National Health Insurance Authority expressing satisfaction with the independent and objective nature of the Rockefeller Foundation sponsored NHIS research carried out by the Centre for Health and Social Services during a validation meeting in May 2011 endorsed this proposal for CHeSS to look for the needed funding to discuss the Ghana story with international interest groups and countries.