How does government responsiveness come about? The politics of accountability in Ghana’s National Health Insurance Scheme

Abstract

In this brief, Terence Darko looks at the development of Ghana’s National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) and examines the extent to which urgency contributed to an increase in political accountability. He notices that during democratic consolidation in Ghana, when the government had an urgent goal without a clearly defined plan, it was more open to engagement with nonstate actors to consult and even concert. As the policy progressed and the government changed, the state felt less of a need to concert but still consulted with non-state actors, as the country’s free, dynamic and relatively autonomous political society kept on pushing for its voice to be heard.