From Cash To M-Money Payments For Enhanced Access

Transcript:From Cash To M-Money Payments For Enhanced Access:
From Cash To M-Money Payments For Enhanced Access To Family Planning And other Life-saving Products In Selected Rural Ghana GRACE MORTON-BRUCE (am.kella@yahoo.com) & DANIEL E. MENSAH (demens36@hotmail.com) HEALTHKEEPERS NETWORK, GHANA Introduction: HealthKeepers Network(HKN) The HKN program brings innovative and sustainable self-help solutions to the fight against diseases, chronic hunger and poverty. It is an innovation that applies a business solution to a public health problem. The HKN program employs a micro-franchise system in which community based agents supported by a sustainable distribution system bring quality health promoting products and consumer information to rural and underserved communities on a reliable basis. The HKN is operated by “HealthKeepers” who go the last mile to directly sell health promoting products in their community. Ghana’s population has tripled from 9 million in 1970 to over 27 million today, Ghana’s population is projected to grow to 33million in 2025 with a population growth rate of 2.3% per year. This will challenge Ghana’s attempts to improve health, education and other services and improve the well being of its people and the environment. Promoting family planning is therefore key to Ghana’s sustainable development. Background Challenges However, access to family planning products and services for people in rural and underserved communities is often hindered by a number of factors. These factors include but, not limited to: low purchasing power of the people, which often does not support a commercially viable FP business operation; long distances and high cost of travels to supply products to such locations; erratic product ordering practices and challenges with the collection of payments on account for products supplied; Lack of access to financial services making most of them unbanked . These factors lead to stock out of commodities which affects uptake of family planning and the general health and wellbeing of the community members. Response to challenges In response to these challenges, HKN began a mobile money (MM) payment system to take advantage of its benefits to promote family planning for sustainable development. Some of the benefits are: rapid, timely and reliable payments; improved security in managing, sending and receiving payments; improved efficiency and reduced administrative cost; improved oversight and financial management; enhanced transparency and governance; and improved access to financial services, particularly in remote locations. Specific Objectives Specific objectives of the project are as follows: to introduce and build awareness for mobile money payment system to provide HKN staff and Community-based distributors (CBDs)