Piloting a new WHO Framework
Gold is the most important export commodity of Ghana, followed by oil and cocoa.
The gold mining sector is growing and thereby creating jobs and promoting the local economy. Gold is mined in large-scale industrial mines and in artisanal and small-scale gold mines (ASGM). Many of the latter operate illegally with marginal knowledge about the implications that unsafe mining practices have on theirs and their communities’ health and the environment.
Together with the World Health Organization (WHO) we're assisting the Ministry of Health (MOH) to develop a Public Health Strategy as part of the National Action Plan (NAP) as stipulated in Article 7 of the Minamata Convention. This report presents the assessment of the institutional readiness to detect, address and prevent health issues associated with ASGM and aims to provide inputs to the MOH on how to best define key priorities in the Public Health Strategy on ASGM.
Based on the consultation of MOH representatives and other key agencies and stakeholders concerned with ASGM-related health topics, institutional capacity strengths and challenges in the public health sector were assessed and key stakeholders identified who appear critical for the development and implementation of a public health strategy tailored to the A
SGM sector.
The assessment was guided by the following
questions:
To what extent are existing regulations, policies, structures and processes in place at the national and subnational levels to respond to ASGM health-related issues?
Are the current institutional capacities at MOH sufficient to deal with health issues in the context of ASGM?
What strengths and opportunities exist that could strengthen capacities and what challenges need to be addressed?
Methodologically, we focus on the following four health priority areas: (1) Health hazards in ASGM communities, (2) Occupational health hazards related to ASGM, (3) Environmental hazards related to ASGM that have implications for health, and (4) Chemical management related to ASGM.
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