Youth Voices at the Digital Crossroads: A Call to Action for Ghana’s Policymakers

 By Doris Odei - Ghana Community Advisory Team

As digital transformation accelerates in Ghana, young people like me are asking: Who is being counted, protected, and empowered in this process?

I serve on the Ghana Community Advisory Team (G–CAT) for The Digital Health and Rights Project. This global research study was led by the University of Warwick’s Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies and supported by a coalition of partners, including NAP+ Ghana. This experience has allowed me to engage directly with how digital systems are changing rights, privacy, and inclusion for youth in Ghana. The project takes place in Ghana, Kenya, Vietnam, and Colombia. It aims to understand how digital health technologies affect the rights, privacy, and inclusion of young people, especially those from criminalised and marginalised communities.

Why This Project Matters for Ghana

With the expansion of digital health projects in Ghana, such as the implementation of e-health systems and conversations about national digital ID and biometric data collection, we are witnessing a rapid shift in how health services are delivered and accessed. While digital tools can improve service delivery, they also raise issues about data privacy, surveillance, and exclusion, particularly for adolescents, gender and sexual minorities, HIV patients, and other vulnerable populations.

In an environment where stigma and criminalisation persist, collecting digital health data without robust legal safeguards may create more harm than good. For example, Ghana's planned anti-LBGTQ+ bill may render digital sites hazardous for entire groups. Without strong human rights protections, digital innovation has the potential to exacerbate rather than reduce disparities.

Our Participatory Approach: Youth-Led and Grounded in Reality

This project is different. It puts young people at the centre, not just as subjects, but as co-researchers, thinkers, and advocates. Through our work as G-CAT members, we contribute to shaping research tools, recruiting participants, analysing findings, and advising on national policy engagement. This is not a top-down study. It’s community-driven, youth-led, and anchored in the lived experiences of real people.

In Ghana, our research includes focus group discussions with young adults across rural, urban, and peri-urban areas. We are hearing directly from those who use mobile apps to seek sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services, those who avoid health facilities due to stigma, and those whose digital footprints make them vulnerable.

What We’ve Learned So Far

Young people in Ghana are digitally active, but not fully protected. Many rely on social media for health information because it offers anonymity. But this same anonymity is fragile: online harassment, misinformation, and fear of surveillance are common. For key populations, this risk is not theoretical; it’s life-threatening.

Our early findings show:

• A lack of comprehensive digital literacy training tailored to health and rights. Many young people, particularly in rural and peri-urban areas, have access to the digital space through mobile devices and social media. However, they often lack the skills to assess the credibility of health information, protect their privacy, or understand their data rights under Ghana’s Data Protection Act (Act 843). In our discussions, participants frequently mentioned relying on WhatsApp and Facebook for sexual and reproductive health (SRH) information but struggling to separate reliable sources from misinformation.

• Legal and policy gaps in data protection and emerging technologies. While Ghana’s Data Protection Act provides a framework for privacy and consent, enforcement is inconsistent, awareness is low, and it does not yet address the risks posed by AI, biometric ID systems, and other new technologies. Many young people we spoke to expressed concerns that these tools could be used to track or discriminate against marginalised groups, particularly in the current climate where criminalisation of identity and behaviour remains a threat.

• A need for safe spaces, both online and offline, for accessing trusted health information without fear. Because stigma and discrimination remain common in health settings, some young people avoid public facilities altogether. They turn instead to encrypted messaging apps or social media for SRH advice, but these are not always safe from harassment, hacking, or breaches. Participants highlighted the need for youth-friendly platforms and community spaces that offer accurate information alongside legal and psychosocial support.

• A strong desire from young people to be part of the solution. Across the country, youth want more than just access to services, they want to co-create them. From designing health apps to shaping policy, they are calling for opportunities to ensure digital health initiatives are relevant, inclusive, and sustainable. This means engaging young people not only as users but as partners and decision-makers.

Aligning with Ghana’s Digital Health Vision

Ghana’s National e-Health Strategy (2010) made strong commitments to ensure privacy, promote universal access, and build digital health capacity across the country. The strategy emphasises the importance of interoperable systems, workforce development, and the confidentiality of patient data (Ghana Ministry of Health, 2010).

However, more than a decade later, these commitments remain unevenly implemented. The strategy predates the current wave of mobile health apps, biometric registration, and AI-enabled services. It does not account for the digital rights risks now facing Ghana’s youth and key populations, nor does it reflect their voices or experiences.

Ghana has hosted over 22 eHealth pilot projects since the launch of its eHealth strategy in 2010, including innovations like mobile teledermatology, SMS-based disease surveillance, and tablet-supported community health outreach (Afarikumah, 2014). These initiatives demonstrated real potential, such as reducing reporting time and improving health worker follow-up, but most were donor-led and lacked long-term sustainability planning. With donor funding on the decline, there is an urgent need to explore alternative financing mechanisms such as public–private partnerships, dedicated national budget allocations, and community-led resource mobilisation to ensure that successful initiatives can be scaled up and maintained. This highlights a key lesson: digital innovation alone is not enough. Without community ownership, rights-based safeguards, sustainable financing, and youth participation, even well-intentioned programs risk becoming obsolete or inequitable.

Despite forward-thinking goals, Ghana’s e-Health Strategy does not adequately address human rights protections, data justice, or the evolving realities of stigmatised communities navigating the digital space.

The time to update this strategy with a rights-based, inclusive framework is now.

A Call to Policymakers: Make Rights Central to Digital Governance

We are at a critical juncture. Ghana must seize this opportunity to create a digital future that protects and promotes the rights of all, not just the privileged few. As policymakers, your decisions today will shape the lives of millions tomorrow. Here's what we are asking:

1. Strengthen legal safeguards: Ensure the full implementation and public accountability of Ghana’s Data Protection Act, 2012 (Act 843), which guarantees principles of consent, purpose limitation, and data subject rights (Sections 20–28). These protections must be made visible and enforceable, especially for vulnerable and marginalized groups navigating digital health systems.
2. Reject harmful legal barrier: Ensure that digital health policies and laws do not create fear or legal risks for individuals seeking essential health information online. Laws that stigmatize or criminalize identity or behavior can discourage the use of health services, undermine trust, and weaken public health efforts.
3. Involve youth meaningfully: Don’t just consult us, partner with us at every stage of digital health policy development, from design and implementation to monitoring and evaluation. Young people are often the primary users of digital platforms, and our insights can help ensure these systems are safe, accessible, and effective. Our lived experiences provide valuable context that policymakers may not see from the top down. When youth are treated as true collaborators not afterthoughts policies are more likely to be inclusive, sustainable, and rooted in real-world challenges.
4. Ensure inclusive digital health strategies: Any national digital health or AI policy must be grounded in human rights and guided by community-based evidence. This means recognizing and addressing the digital divide, ensuring gender equity, accommodating persons with disabilities, and protecting the rights of key populations. Inclusion must go beyond access to infrastructure it should involve inclusive content design, culturally relevant digital literacy initiatives, and proactive measures to ensure that no group is left behind in the digital health ecosystem.
5. Update the e-Health Strategy: Ghana’s 2010 strategy needs urgent revision to reflect today's digital environment and include protections for key populations and youth voices.

In Conclusion

Digital transformation is not neutral. Without inclusive governance and community participation, it can reinforce the same inequalities we are trying to overcome. As young people in Ghana, we are not only witnessing this shift, but we are part of it. We are asking for a future where digital progress and human rights move hand in hand.

Reference

Ghana Data Protection Commission. (2012). Data Protection Act, 2012 (Act 843). 

Ghana Ministry of Health. (2010). Ghana National e-Health Strategy. 

Afarikumah, E. (2014). Electronic health in Ghana: Current status and future prospects. Online 

Journal of Public Health Informatics, 5(3), e230.