Health Facility Delivery Incentive Program

The Health Facility Delivery Incentive Program was launched in November 2013 in collaboration with medical students from the University of California Los Angeles. The goal of the program is to increase the proportion of deliveries in health facilities and reduce the financial barriers preventing women from delivering in clinics and hospitals.

While Ghana has made significant progress toward meeting many of the Sustainability Development Goals, progress in SDG 3, global health and well-being, including reducing child mortality and improving maternal health, is relatively lagging. Increasing skilled birth attendance and facility-based deliveries is a sustainable way to foster improvements.

Any woman from Apenkrom who is six or more months pregnant is eligible for the program and after taking a short survey, is provided with an incentive package including items commonly collected at health facilities during childbirth. All participants receive counseling on the advantages and health benefits of delivering in the presence of a skilled health worker. By providing incentive packages, GHEI aims to offset the cost of delivery and encourage more women to deliver in a health facility. After delivery, women return to GHEI to collect a post-delivery incentive package and answer questions about their delivery experience and their delivery location, so the program can be successfully monitored and evaluated. 

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