GHS has a regional office in Johannesburg, South Africa, specializing in advocacy, communications and strategy consulting.

Our mission is to address health and development issues affecting developing countries and emerging markets in Africa. To this end, we work with key partners and clients such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Graça Machel Trust, World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, as well as other large donors. We have a robust network of diverse stakeholders and reputable media in the region, including more than 500 senior reporters and editors at leading news publications across the continent.

Our work in South Africa has included:

• Working with partners to expand access to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in South Africa including access to safe abortions. This work is done through the SAFE project (Safe Abortion For Everyone) that aims to enhance access to safe abortion services for women and girls in South Africa, by advocating for rights-based reproductive health policies and changing provider attitudes about abortion. In this regard, GHS has engaged with key stakeholders including policymakers, technical experts, media, popular public figures and CSOs, to better integrate abortion into the health and development agenda, and bolster abortion rights and access in the country.
• Broadening our national footprint and reach by collaborating with the Treatment Action Campaign to train community advocates and conducting community dialogues in Gauteng and Limpopo provinces.
• Leveraging our strategic networks by partnering with health news agency Health-e and the Bhekisisa Centre for Health Journalism in conducting sensitisation and training workshops for journalists on SRHR.
• Launching a dual-phased social media campaign, #MyBodyMyChoice, further increasing awareness and elevating the discourse on access to safe abortion utilising digital media. The campaign has been a collaborative initiative with a diverse range of reputable partners. Read more about the campaign here.
• Employing a multi-pronged advocacy and communications strategy thus enabling our participation both at grass-roots and high-level platforms and structures. As such we were well placed to support the National Department of Health, in an advisory capacity, with the drafting of the National Abortion Guidelines.
• Supporting the Graça Machel Trust to raise the discourse around the Sustainable Development Goals and the post-2015 agenda for reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health and nutrition in Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia.
• Offering on-site support to United States Pharmacopeia (USP) at the Africa Health Agenda Conference 2019 in Kigali, Rwanda, including organizing a high-level panel discussion on expanding access to safe, quality medicines to achieve universal health coverage in Africa.
• Producing advocacy materials for the Primary Health Care Performance Initiative (PHCPI) in Ghana.