Ghana could boost GDP by 1.5% through improved health outcomes

Democracy and Development Fellow in Health at the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), Dr. Kwame Asiedu Sarpong, has revealed that Ghana has the potential to achieve up to a 1.5% increase in GDP by 2030 through improved health outcomes.

According to him, the current and future governments should embark on what he described as strategic investments in health by learning from successful health sector investment models in other countries Africa and the world.

Speaking during the JoyNews and Amalgam of Professional Bodies Speaker Series on Tuesday, December 16, Dr. Sarpong emphasized that health should be viewed as an economic investment rather than a social cost.

“A healthy, useful population is not a social luxury; it is an economic engine,” he stated, arguing that health outcomes form “a foundation of national competitiveness.”

Dr. Sarpong pointed to the government’s creation of the Ghana Medical Trust Fund as the “centerpiece” of his analysis, describing it as potentially “the most transformative reform in our health financing landscape.” However, he warned that the success of this transformation will depend largely on protecting it from political interference.

The CDD-Ghana Fellow further revealed significant gaps in Ghana’s pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity compared to other developing nations, highlighting that while Bangladesh has dramatically increased its medicine self-sufficiency from 25% to 98%, and Algeria currently produces 82% of its pharmaceutical needs, Ghana remains stuck at less than 30% local production.

Dr. Sarpong indicated that this dependency on pharmaceutical imports not only drains foreign exchange reserves but also increases healthcare costs for the ordinary Ghanaian, potentially “undermining the country’s economic competitiveness.”