Ghana Has No Reason To Be Poor-World Bank

Henry Kerali
Henry Kerali, World Bank Country Director for Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone, has challenged Ghana to institute actionable strategies to exploit the country's abundant resources to eradicate poverty in the savannah zone.

'There is no reason why northern Ghana and for that matter, Ghana as a whole should be poor, many countries do not have a fraction of the resources that Ghana has,' he said at the launch of the month-long exhibition of smock on Friday.

The month-long exhibition, which is on theme: 'The grass is greener,' is aimed at creating jobs in the savannah regions to reduce poverty.

He said: 'I would like to challenge the government and Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) to step in with more vigour and come out with concrete and implementable action plans from the numerous plans already in existence.

'Review those that need to be reviewed, add new ones if necessary, so we can start getting some concrete and impactful results for the people.'

'The good people of the SADA zone cannot wait forever,' Kerali added.

He said the savannah ecological belt is huge and stretches across Africa, Asia and Latin America.

But Asia and Latin America have been able to turn them into major food baskets and growth poles.

The SADA zone covers about 60 percent of the land mass of country and spans five regions.

He said SADA region, with its arable lands and other resources, including its rivers, as well as hard working and creative people, have a lot to offer Ghana and the sub-region.

'I believe we can and should do a lot more to harness all these untapped resources and use them to improve the lot of the people in this zone.'

Mr Kerali lauded the initiative to wear Batakari every Friday, saying 'the potentials to be unlocked by promoting Batakari are clearly vast.'

He said the local garment apparel also called Fugu or Dansiki, depending on one's ethnic origin, already has an international appeal and is also growing fast into a dress code for pan-Africanists.

GNA