The National Coordinator of the NCD Alliance Ghana and Executive Director of Vision for Accelerated Sustainable Development Ghana (VAST Ghana), Labram Musah,has been named a 2025 UHC Champion by the global Universal Health Coverage campaign.

He is one of 69 individual champions recognised worldwide for their extraordinary contributions to advancing universal health coverage.

This honour places Mr. Musah among a distinguished global cohort of health advocates, policymakers, and practitioners dedicated to ensuring that every person, everywhere, can access quality health services without facing financial hardship.

Mr. Musah’s recognition reflects not only the impact of his work but also the campaign’s core spirit of inspiring action, amplifying grassroots voices, and demonstrating that meaningful change is possible through committed community engagement and advocacy collaboration.

Central to this recognition is the 2024 Civil Society NCDs Manifesto for Political Parties, a landmark policy initiative with significant implications for millions of Ghanaians. The manifesto elevated non-communicable diseases (NCDs) to the highest levels of national political discourse.

Under Mr. Musah’s leadership, the NCD Alliance Ghana successfully advocated for the integration of comprehensive NCD and mental health services into the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) to help remove financial barriers to treatment and care.

This recognition also reinforces the Alliance’s call for political parties to prioritise the treatment, care, and prevention of NCDs as key development issues. By aligning national efforts with the Ghana UHC Roadmap and relevant international commitments, Mr. Musah has ensured that the voices of people living with NCDs and mental health conditions are included in shaping a health system that leaves no one behind.

In addition, Mr. Musah has used the VAST Ghana platform to intensify advocacy for sustainable domestic funding and resource mobilisation, including the use of health excise taxes, noting that NCDs and mental health services remain significantly underfunded.

A major policy milestone was achieved in 2025, when the Government of Ghana exempted the National Health Insurance Fund from the list of statutory funds subject to a fiscal cap, a move aimed at protecting and strengthening the financial foundation of the country’s health insurance system.

This development, together with the launch of the Ghana Medical Trust Fund and the rollout of the Free Primary Health Care initiative, marks a significant step forward in advancing health equity in Ghana.

“Removing caps on the National Health Insurance Fund was a crucial step toward sustainable financing for universal health coverage. Now we must continue strengthening primary health care and ensuring that NCD and mental health services are fully integrated and accessible to all,” Mr. Musah said.

Throughout his career, Mr. Musah has established himself as a leading advocate for health equity in Ghana, amplifying the voices of patients, caregivers, and communities that have often been excluded from health policy discussions.

His work has consistently focused on the intersection of health financing, primary health care, and the inclusion of NCD and mental health services in national health coverage frameworks, areas that remain underfunded in Ghana and across sub-Saharan Africa.

Through coalition building, stakeholder engagement, and public advocacy campaigns, he has contributed to shaping national conversations on what universal health coverage should mean for ordinary Ghanaians.

The NCD Alliance Ghana says it will continue to strengthen primary health care infrastructure as the backbone of Ghana’s universal health coverage agenda, advocating increased investment in health facilities, the workforce, and essential medicines at the community level.

People living with NCDs and mental health conditions will remain central to these efforts, with the Alliance committed to deepening their participation in policy development and implementation.

As a 2025 UHC Champion, Mr. Musah will also serve as a global ambassador, sharing Ghana’s experiences with the international health community and contributing to efforts aimed at achieving health for all by 2030.