Dubbed: "The Project for Improving Nurturing Care through the use of Maternal and Child Health Record Book", it seeks to improve the maternal and child health service delivery and will ensure effective documentation of the mother and child health care.

The agreement, signed by Madam Anne-Claire Dufay, UNICEF Representative in Ghana, and Mr Himeno Tsutomu, Japanese Ambassador to Ghana, was witnessed by Mr Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, Ghana's Health Minister.

The project will also strengthen the capacity of health workers on equity-informed implementation and monitoring of preventive care in the first thousand days of life, including using the inspiring Japanese KAIZEN model, to improve efficiency, as well as client and staff satisfaction.

UNICEF and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), one of the implementing partners of the project, aim at scaling up efforts to reach 740,000 mothers and children in 80 districts in nine regions of Ghana.

This would also promote the effective use of the maternal and child health record book, to serve as a tool for comprehensive early childhood development and nurturing care.

At the signing ceremony in Accra, Mr Agyeman-Manu said the project would help track the child from birth up to about five years, saying the models that existed in the Ghana Child Record Book was a bit different.

He said the implementers of the new project have incorporated early child development care so that there would be recordings at every stage; "how the child is fairing until five years, and this would help detect if there will be illness or if child is not being fed properly".

The Health Minister said mothers were being trained to actually feed the kids with nutrition counsellors, and this was being done across 10 regions, adding  "I believe this will give us what it takes to develop a child, so is a human capacity building initiative".

Mr Tsutomu reiterated the Japanese government's commitment to support Ghana in reducing its maternal mortality, emphasizing on the need to embrace preventive measures.

He said this would not only help save the Government of Ghana a lot of money, but also meet the set goals of improving reproductive maternal, newborn, child health and nutrition in Ghana.

The Japanese Ambassador said the Government through the embassy would continue to collaborate with the private sector and the Japanese non -governmental organisations, towards achieving such objectives.

Madam Dufay said maternal mortality still accounts for 14 per cent of all women in reproductive age deaths, 18 per cent of children in Ghana are stunted, and only 43 per cent of children were exclusively breastfed within the first six months.

She said there is the need to accelerate action to improve the overall health and wellbeing of children and mothers in the country.

"We truly believe that this programme will contribute well to the realization of Ghana's Universal Coverage roadmap and in addressing the remaining health and nutrition challenges facing young children and mothers.

Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), said the new record book would also empower partners and community largely as it incorporates a lot of illustrations to make it user friendly for caregivers and their families.

He expressed the hope that the project would improve the coverage of core reproductive and child health and nutrition services particularly in the newly created regions and deprived districts where there are still significant gaps in the continuum of preventive care.