Capacity Building in Ghana’s Decentralised Health System: A Qualitative Study

Capacity building is a crucial management tool used to enhance and sharpen the competencies of staff in health facilities. The core objective of this study is to assess how health performance in decentralised health systems can improve through capacity building. The study adopted a descriptive-exploratory design with a qualitative approach. A semi-structured interview guide is the primary tool for data collection in this study. The purposeful sampling technique was used to sample eight respondents from selected hospitals in Accra, Ghana. A one-to-one interview process was conducted, and sampling continued until saturation was reached. Thematic content analysis is the method employed for data analysis. The results of the study showed that though Ghana‘s health system is implementing the decentralisation reform, to some extent, some core functions like human resources, procurement, logistics, and recruitment are still centralised, with the majority of the actions taken at the top management level. Again, capacity building is reported to be carried out in all health facilities, but in some cases, the frequency with which they are organised is the issue, as sometimes they are initiated by the specific department and not by the organisation. All respondents were of the view that the more capacity-building programs are organised, the greater the chance of increased performance as accountability is improved.