Professor Amos Laar of the School of Public Health, College of Health Sciences, and his team have been awarded a grant by The Rockefeller Foundation and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC-Canada).
The award ceremony took place during the launch of a project, titled, ‘Developing evidence and action toward a double-duty food-based policy bundle to ensure healthier diets in Ghana’. The project aims to build evidence and mobilize multi-stakeholder actions toward a policy bundle for healthier and more equitable consumer food environments that reduces malnutrition.
Hon. Kwaku Agyemang-Manu, Minister of Health, made known governments commitment to improve its food environment by implementing, food-based dietary guidelines and a nutrient profiling system to facilitate the implementation of a set of food-based policies for Ghana to curb the rise of infectious diseases, undernutrition, and micronutrient deficiencies, non-communicable diseases.“I am confident that the coalition of Government Agencies, Academia, and Civil Society through the ‘Healthy Diets 4 Healthy Lives’ (HD4HL) will help Ghana realize these commitments ahead of 2030, he opined”.
In brief remarks, Professor Julius Fobil, Provost, College of Health Sciences, expressed the University’scommitment to the Project. He reiterated the scientific consensus that unhealthy food environments hinder national growth. He was pleased that the HD4HL project will address that challenge.
Prof. Amos Laar, Principal Investigator of the HD4HL Project stated, “The HD4HL initiative will enable the University of Ghana to go beyond conducting policy-influencing and policy-impacting public health research to contributing sufficiently and meaningfully to public health policy-making in Ghana”.
Hon. Dr. Sebastian Sandaare, Member of Parliament, Daffiama/Bussie/Issa Constituencyand representative of the Coalition of Actors for Public Health Advocacy noted that the health and economic repercussions of NCDs to the country and on the quality of life are enormous. He pledged the willingness of CSOs to collaborate with government agencies and academia to facilitate the implementation of a set of food-based policies for Ghana.
A group photo taken at the launch
Source: ug.edu.gh
