MDGs Dominate Sister Cities Confab
THE MILEUNNIUM Development Goals (MDGs) achievement seems a crucial decider if Ghana's objective of becoming a middle income country by 2015 is to be realised.
These were analysis and reflections made by participants from a one week conference of the Africa Global Sister Cities Foundation which ended in Accra yesterday.
Stakeholders, including government, at one of the last brainstorming sessions, agreed that much more was needed to be done in spite of the rapid achievement Ghana had made in reducing poverty among its people.
Dr. Appiah Kubi, a Policy Director at the National Development Planning Commission, stressed that Ghana seems to face problems in the area of health, therefore the country needs to double its efforts in meeting the MDGs by 2015.
He mentioned there were fewer challenges that still bedeviled the implementing of the MDGs; these being macroeconomic situation and political pressures, costing of the MDGs, financing, mechanism for monitoring as well as reliable data for the MDGs monitoring.
“We must add up after achieving poverty reduction and meet up with education, health or malaria, water and sanitation,” because these five provide human development, services and production.
He said anything short of this means no achievement and appealed to members of the public to cut down on their luxury life class that may cause them to slide back into the poverty ring.
With a population of 22 million people, Ghana, through a rapid response was able to scale down its poverty rate between 1991, to 1992 and 2006, from 52 percent to 2.8 percent.
About 40 percent of the nation's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is dependent on the agriculture sector whose operators are poor farmers from mainly the North, the Afram Plains and Akatsi District of Ghana.
As part of efforts to meet the people's desired goals for empowerment and job creation, a five-year $241million Millennium Development Authority (MiDA)-agricultural project would be instituted. According to Madam Ophelia Ayeh, MiDA's Research Manager, the project is focusing on increasing cash crops and other food production and has been put in place for 23 districts in the county.
Prince Kwame Kludjeson, President of the Africa Sister Cities Foundation, applauded Ghana for setting a milestone in Africa for its common development. Through his Foundation, he said, other African cities would be connected with the United States of America for their development goals.
Speaking to DAILY GUIDE in an interview, he noted that “the resources are there to tap through understanding and investment with our partners abroad.”
The Foundation, he said, would liaise with stakeholders in pushing the achievement of Ghana's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by initiating empowerment projects to help people improve their standard of living.