body-container-line-1
29.08.2015 Feature Article

The Place Of Young People In Ghana’s 40-Year Development Plan

The Place Of Young People In Ghanas 40-Year Development Plan
29.08.2015 LISTEN

Ghana’s history is well documented and accessible. And so I didn’t find it troubling establishing the philosophy that underpinned the attainment of her independence. As I observed in the works for this piece Dr. Kwame Nkrumah and his CPP pursued independence on a ‘rigorously instantaneous note’. The party adopted the slogan ‘self-government now’ as against the UGCC’s ‘self-government within the shortest possible time’.

This was both a reflection of Dr. Nkrumah’s personality and Ghanaians eagerness for self-rule. Even before independence the CPP Government’s first term of office which lasted from 1951 to 1958 and is christened to be the most successful of all pursued what is described ‘bold, highly imaginative and practical steps to push the development of the country on all fronts’. By this the CPP Government replaced what Professor Adu Boahen describes as ‘‘timid colonial Ten-Year Development Plan drawn up in 1946 with a Five-Year Development Plan together with an accelerated plan for education. The result was evident and historic for today’s generation.

Ironically, 15 years into the 21st century, great minds in the mix of pragmatics, leftist and Nkrumahist most of whom have hard experience in successive regimes think the absence of a long-term development has caused Ghana’s lack of progress. They say it is not their self-greed, indecisions, non-visionary leadership, corrupt conducts, myopic thinking and political deceptions.

And to shamefully run from alluding to the concerns of the many that the plan will fail they say it has to be binding if it is to succeed. I do not want to believe they are motivated by politics and the proposed 10million (same as the amount allocated for YES) at stake for the plan’s development.

With political minds made we will hopefully have one even if it beat the politics of common sense and the fact that the plan is already dead in conception. As a youth and a tax payer I am obliged to find space within. I do so with three generations of young people in mind. Those alive today who in 2057 would have aged, those who will barge into 2057 young as well as those to begin 2057 as young people. Already Ghana has a young population and this in principle implies putting them at the heart of every developmental agenda. I am glad Dr. Nii Moi Thompson rightly instruct; ‘‘a long-term development plan will ensure that the present and the future generations are catered for in development planning’’. But this is where he is wrong, young people no longer want to be catered for. Rather they want to work out their own fate and miracle. They want to lead the path to their destiny and discussions on what matters to them.

Therefore the place of young people in such a plan is for them to own it. Youth ownership will ensure the plan buys into both their present circumstances and aspirations. Thus it has to hugely focus on young people’s education, employment, environment as well as bridging the huge urban-rural gap. Like South Africa’s NDP it has to adopt a ‘youth Lens’ by making specific proposals to improve the prospects of young people. Then Young people can in turn embrace it.

To achieve this young people will have to form the core of consultations in drafting the plan: both in those to be consulted and thus to lead consultation. Youth consultations should be mainstreamed and rigorously make use of the social media. A special taskforce should be set up to review already existing youth-focussed documents especially those enacted by young people themselves. It should properly harness existing youth development frameworks and tap into the expertise and potentials of young people. It should do well to coordinate youth development work and properly empower youth development institutions.

The truth is, we can no longer trust the old for our well being and to try them on another 40-year journey will be much more ciaos and lock us behind for good.

I am concluding but not without telling to the face of Dr. Nii Moi Thompson and his team that the place of young people in a 40-year development plan is not in the comforting words of an 8-year old’s charming looks and heart warming speech. If that’s the magic I am sure the likes of Cullis-Suzuki might have ended the woes of globalisation. For those who care, in 1992, 12-year-old Canadian Severn Cullis-Suzuki spoke at the Earth Summit in Rio and moved her audience to tears with her speech. Now she is known as "The Girl Who Silenced the World for 5 Minutes"

The writer Bernard Kwofie is a recognized African Youth Activist and an Associate Fellow of the Royal Commonwealth Society.

body-container-line