African governments urged to focus on suitable development projects

Cape Coast, May 12, GNA - Mr David Malone, President of the International Development Centre, based in Canada has urged African countries to focus on development projects suitable for their environment instead of relying on donor countries to impose projects on them.

He said most development projects in developing countries did not achieve the required results because majority of such projects were formulated and designed by donor countries and imposed on African nations without taking into consideration the specific needs and aspirations of the beneficiary countries.

Mr Malone said this in a lecture on “How Might We Think of development “ at the University of Cape Coast (UCC) on Friday, as part of the University's occasional lecture series held in Cape Coast.

The lecture, which was attended by heads of departments of the university, lecturers and some students, was to deliberate on how people understand development.

He said the time had come for developing countries to set their national priorities right and adopt projects that would fit into their development agenda, stressing that, it was important for African governments to take a critical look at their governance system and economy policies.

He said it was important for Africans countries to also consider the implementation of internal funds mobilization through encouraging people to pay the appropriates taxes, this he noted, would help them plan development projects that would meet their demands as well as put the government on its toes since people would like to derive maximum benefits from the taxes they pay.

Mr Malone called on Universities in Ghana to also help the government to redirect its programmes and come out with policies that would help in the development of the country.

He also expressed concern about the effects of conflicts on development, adding that, no nation could develop effectively with conflicts and that no investor would like to invest in a conflict prone country.

Mr Malone said developing countries should put the appropriate governance system in place to enable them to harness their development programmes, stressing that, without the appropriate governance systems and institutions, there would be no meaningful development.

Mr Malone announced that the International Development Centre has given an amount of two million dollars to the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) and Statistical and Economic Research Centre to improve the human capacity, saying that, it was important for countries to develop their human resource capital.

He said the centre took into consideration the think tank role these institutions were playing in Ghana's policy processing, and that, out of the 23 countries that applied for assistance, the two Ghanaian think tanks received the highest amount, out of the 115 million dollars set aside.

The Canadian High commissioner to Ghana said Canada, for the past 50 years, had been in partnership with Ghana through CIDA and had given support in the areas of agriculture, potable water and sanitation, in the three northern regions.

GNA