Impact of Women Organizations Access to Public Institutions and Officials on Policy Outputs in the Health Sector in Ghana and Liberia (2006 – 2018)

Abstract

Among the major ways that Women organizations seek to influence policy outputs in relevant sectors are through access to public institutions and officials. Ghana and Liberia despite having a large number of women organizations that are actively involved in the political and policy processes are still experiencing major health challenges, such as the prevalence of chronic diseases as policy outputs showed mismatch of outputs to needs, low quality of services and significant rural health delivery deficit. The study examined the impact of women organisations access to public institutions and officials on policy outputs in the health sectors in Ghana and Liberia from 2006 – 2018. The study adopted convergent parallel design (a mixed method design). The population of the study was 92 registered women organisations in the two countries with a sample of 677 select-respondents using Taro Yamane formula. Validated questionnaire and interview guide were instruments of data collection. Linear regression was employed in the analysis of quantitative data while qualitative data were content analysed. The researchers found that women organisations access to public institutions and officials had significant effect on policy outputs in health sectors of Ghana and Liberia, F(2,677)=3931.142, Adj. R2=.921, p<0.05.The study concluded that Women organizations access to public officials and institutions had significant impact in Liberia with formulation of maternal and child health policies, while it did not produce the same result in Ghana. Women organisations need to collaborate to be able to make better impact on policy outputs in the two countries.