Dr Da-Costa Aboagye Wins Top Award At 2023 Ghana Leadership Event.

Dr Da-Costa Aboagye, Director of Health Promotion Division of the Ghana Health Service displaying his award last Saturday

Dr Da-Costa Aboagye, the Director of Health Promotion Division of the Ghana Health Service has won the National Health Leader Award of the year at the 2023 Ghana Leadership Awards (GLA).

The Ghana Leadership award is an annual award scheme that aims at honouring and celebrating personalities for their outstanding and exemplary leadership in field of endeavours in advancing the development of Ghana and Africa at large.

The ceremony which took place at the La-palm Royal Beach Hotel Saturday honoured over 100 extraordinary leaders in the country from all spheres of life of which Dr Aboagye won the National Health Leader Award for 2023.

Speaking at the event, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the awards, Professor Emmanuel Nash, said the award, this year honoured individuals who have made a difference in their endeavours to inspire others to emulate their steps as well as those whose exemplary contributions have advanced Ghana’s growth in economic, social, political, health and leadership development.

The CEO narrated that Dr Aboagye won the overall best in health category due to his quality leadership exemplary as President of ECOWAS RCCE network for the 15 member ECOWAS states, as Chairman of Public Health risk communication and community engagement for Africa under Africa CDC for 55 member Africa states and as Director of Health Promotion at the Ghana Health Service of the Ministry of Health. Such an industrious son of Ghana, making such a huge impact across the continent must be celebrated and honoured.

Appreciation:
In an interview with the media, Dr Aboagye stated his appreciation for the honour and thank the committee that nominated him. He promised to work hard to serve the underprivileged, vulnerable and inspire hope in the youth of Africa.

Some of past winners of this award included President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo, Former President John Dramani Mahama, Jerry John Rawlings, John Agyekum Kuffour, Mr. Kwasi Kwaning-Bosompem, Mr Daniel Yaw Domelevo, The Former United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan, and Peggy Ama Donkor, among others.

Profile of Dr Da-Costa Aboagye:
The Director of Ghana Health Service’s Health Promotion Division, Dr. Da-Costa Aboagye is a global and national figure in Risk Communication and Community Engagement in public health and pandemic preparedness.

He led Ghana’s national risk communication efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic and created a national risk communication and misinformation taskforce for COVID-19.

Dr Aboagye supervised Ghana’s national risk communication strategy for covid-19 and decentralised the risk communication committees across many districts to better prepare for the next pandemic.

He also created an effective community grievance redress mechanism system for covid-19.
Dr Da costa Aboagye is the current President of the ECOWAS risk communication and community engagement network within the West Africa Health Organisation with a responsibility to facilitate experience sharing, advocacy, learning, and promotion of better health through building stronger risk communication systems in the 15 ECOWAS member states.
Exploits on the Continent:
In Africa, Dr Aboagye chairs the Africa CDC Public Health Risk communication and community engagements community of practice for the 55 member states to promote best practices, continuous learning and knowledge exchange among African countries, and to further provide strategic leadership and coordination for public health risk communication and community engagement initiatives in the continent and institutionalize PH-RCCE as an essential part of public health interventions in Africa.

Laurels:
He is a fellow of the Higher Education Academy of England and Wales, an international consultant, an external examiner for both the University of Salford and the London Metropolitan University.

Dr. Aboagye holds a BSc Degree in Chemistry (University of Cape Coast), MSc in Public Health and Environmental Health (Leeds Beckett University), PhD in Health and Wellbeing with research focused on National Health Insurance Scheme in Ghana (Leeds Beckett University).

Prior to being appointed Director of Health Promotion in 2019, he worked as a Cohort Leader and Lecturer at the University of West London, United Kingdom from 2017.

He is also a reviewer for the Global Health Promotion Journal and a researcher with over twelve impactful scholarly publications to his name.

Leveraging on the creative industry to promote health, Dr Aboagye supervises a very popular health promotion drama entertainment series Called You only live Once (YOLO) through Farmhouse production.

Exploits:
The series uses popular Ghanaian celebrities and young casts to disseminate health messages in the areas of covid-19, family health, maternal and child health, youth empowerment, reproductive and sexual health, HIV and malaria reaching over 10million Youth on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and about 3.5 million viewers on Television set every Friday in Ghana.

In 2021, Dr Aboagye was nominated to be a member of the Partnership for Evidence-Based Response to COVID-19, a consortium made up of organizations such as the World Economic Forum, African Union, Resolve to Save Lives, the World Health Organization and private sector actors. He was later designated by the consortium to present research evidence on human impact, public health, and social measures in Africa.

International Recognition
In 2022, the United States Government through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) launched a new, five-year $29 million partnership with Dr. Aboagye’s Division of the Ghana Health Service to support the widespread adoption of life-saving health behaviours across Ghana.

Under the leadership of Dr. Aboagye, the project continues to produce many successes including a launch of a National Health Promotion Strategy for Ghana.

Other Awards:
He has received many prestigious awards and citations including the MTN Young Professionals Role Model in Health, Gold Category, in 2020, and the Golden Citizen Award in 2021, conferred on him by the Traditional Authority of Kumawu-Bodomase for his humanitarian work.

More recently, his work won him the highest award of the Republic of Ghana called Order of Volta – companion category for his role and sacrifices during Ghana’s Covid-19 response.

Story By Michael Ofosu-Afriyie, Kumasi.