body-container-line-1
16.04.2015 Politics

Every politician has good intentions but… Israeli Professor warns Ghanaians

By MyJoyOnline
Every politician has good intentions but Israeli Professor warns Ghanaians
16.04.2015 LISTEN

As Ghana goes to the polls in 2016, an Israeli Professor Emerita of Political Science and African Studies, Prof. Naomi Chazan has charged Ghanaians to vote for persons who are capable of delivering results.

Speaking at this year's Kronti Ne Akwamu (Democracy and Governance) Lecture on the topic: “Promoting Inclusion in African Democracies'', she cautioned that all politicians seeking to lead a nation have something good in mind.

“[But] politics is not about good intention, please!” Prof. Chazan, who is the Dean of School of Government and Society at the Academic College of Tel-Aviv emphasised.

“Everybody comes to politics ostensibly with good intentions,” she pointed out, stressing, “politics can be measured only by one thing, and that is good results politicians leave behind.”

In order to achieve equal development, Prof. Chazan, a co-director of the Center for the Advancement of Women in the Public Sphere at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and chairs the Advisory Committee of the National Authority for the Advancement of Women in Israel, advocated that politicians practise “inclusionary policy”

To achieving inclusionary policies, she said, “depended on professional, skilled, sensitive leaders who understand the need to make the weakest link stronger, fortifying everybody.”

“The goal is to make sure that every policy in every sphere does not discriminate or exclude one group or any interest,” Prof. Chazan maintained.

In order to deal with the challenges of today, she added, Government needs better health and education policies together with better infrastructure, and in the case of Ghana, an energy policy.

“The assumption is that if one develops and designs advance policies, they will benefit everybody equally, that is not correct. Please do not go there. Every single policy will affect different groups differently and therefore in order to have inclusionary policies…before implementation, one must study and examine how the policy will affect each group and adjust accordingly… by taking into accounts the needs of the different groups,” Prof. Naomi Chazan underscored.

In her assessment, often times people who come to office do forget that the starting point is not equal. She explained, when one gives the same resources to each group or region, “the result is that you will be producing public goods that increased the distance of the gaps instead of narrowing them…affirmative action is actually most advisable in allocation and not in the representation”.

Other possibilities of achieving equality, she mentioned, include compensation, taking into consideration the tax level and public pricing.

Prof. Chazan, noted that the need to use different tools to achieve results is necessary because “if we keep doing the same thing and expect different results, then we will be fulfilling the old way of saying that we are not particularly rational, and we do want to be rational, and therefore if you have done the same thing all the time and gaps still exist you need to try something different.”

The lecture was organised by the Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) with support from the British Council and Joy 99.7 FM

Follow on twitter @isaacessel
Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com| Isaac Essel | [email protected] | twitter @isaacessel

body-container-line