
Abstract
Intelligent sources signal organization of an impending National Economic Conference (NEC) towards solving current economic challenges inherited by the NDC government. Whiles the NEC is important, it may not be the most cost-effective alternative under the current fiscal challenges of government. This essay concludes by suggesting the adoption of crowd-sourcing as an alternative technology to achieve the same NEC objectives.
Introduction
In the year 2017, DailyGuide Newspaper executed a national Essay Competition under the topic, “Encouraging the reading culture in a developing country – Ghana’s Social Media Era”. It was the ideas contained in one of the best essays that provided a policy direction of the Ghana government in the renewed interest for supporting the ongoing nation-wide National Spelling Bee competition among basic schools in a bid to address falling educational standards among others. That is the power of crowd-sourcing.
Crowd-sourcing, tracing its original roots to the United States of America (USA), has been employed by both the Pentagon and NASA to solve pressing challenges confronting America. Crowd-sourcing has been used by IdeasConnect portal of Canada to solve engineering challenges; IDEaS of Canada has also been used to solve Canadas security and defense challenges from the ideas of its citizens; IdeasGermany and IdeasGlobal are all organizations using the principle of crowd-sourcing across the developed world.
National Economic Conference
If Ghana fails, all of us have failed and so it is not in the interest of any well-meaning Ghanaian to wish that the country fails. Whiles this essay does not discount the significance of the proposed National Economic Conference (NEC) by the current NDC government, the present fiscal constraints of government make the holding of such a proposed NEC not very necessary amidst viable alternatives. We are talking about the struggle of government to pay feeding grants for SHSs, allowances for teacher and nursing trainees, workers social security contributions, arrears of power producers and so on.
The NDC government is advised to engage a software firm to build an interactive crowd-sourcing website such as www.nec.gov.gh in order to collect ideas or views from the Ghanaian public about the way forward in addressing the national economic challenges. A panel of seven (7) renowned experts from economics, finance, engineering, education, agriculture, health and law can be assigned as evaluators of submissions from the public. Once a submission is made, the website automatically sends the data directly into the email of each evaluator. After receiving all submissions, the panel compiles a report adding their expert opinion and forwarded to the cabinet. Off course, the proposed guidelines of entries should be such that it will limit the number of submissions to a manageable number.
It is unfortunate to note that in this part of the world, many a times the tendency for bias, nepotism and dishonesty to characterize evaluations of such sort of entries especially when a prize is attached to it, is common. If the government intends to follow this suggestion, then control procedures must be put in place to avoid that or minimize its chance. This will ensure that the prize goes to the best three deserving submissions. At least, the cost of a panel will be much cheaper that paying for hotel bills, feeding and transport of many if not hundreds.
Conclusion
The advantage of crowd-sourcing is that it has the potential to unveil the brightest ideas some times from people least expected to possess such knowledge or capabilities. Wisdom and skills are not the monopoly of PhD holders or Professors since the solution can come from a villager in the Savannah Region all the way to a homeless person in the slums of the national city. It is the secrete why even in the age of powerful computers, the developed world is still holding onto crowd-sourcing. Until Africa, reorient itself with a sense of urgency towards the genuine fight of corruption to redirect state resources for development, we will continue to suffer needlessly. A word to the wise is enough.
Sumaila Mohammed Ibrahim, CMBA Finance
Correspondence: [email protected]