Ghana’s Education Challenges And What Must Be Done To End Them

They yet-to-be outdoored 'IMANI Forum on Education' continues to work tirelessly on what must be done FINALLY to salvage the dwindling fortunes with Ghana's education.

The Forum has met with the Minister of Education already and is still working to help Ghana get it right. (The forum is Chaired by Sir Sam Jonah with 13 highly prominent Ghanaians: Prof. Stephen Adei (Vice-Chairman), Prof. Seth Buatsi, Prof. Addae Mensah Prof. J.S. Djangmah, Mr. Kenneth Quartey, Mr. Franklin Cudjoe, Mrs Adelaide Ahwireng Mr. Kofi Bentil (General Secretary) Dr. Patrick Awuah Mr. Isreal Titi-Ofei Dr. Tony Oteng-Gyasi, Br. Lydia Apori Nkansah ,Dr. K.B. Asante

Dialogue with Businessmen and Industrialists

In the light of the economic challenges facing the country right now, IMANI is working hard to have a discussion with industrialists and businessmen to understand how they can help the government to not to make illiberal economic laws and how that can advance growth.

Maternal Health Issues

IMANI's Four-female gender desk hopes to argue through research and advocacy that:

· Current Maternal death ratio is 350/100,000 births as against the target of 180/100,000 births.

· 57% of births are skill deliveries while over 40% are unskilled deliveries.

· According to the manifestoes of political parties in the last election most of the political parties touch on Maternal Health touch on the improvement of access ( Building of Hospitals, CHPS compounds) and the quality of service ( Training of Midwifes) and Family Planning(FP)

· The main challenges to maternal Health care in Ghana are Transportation, Financial access and the quality.

· Transportation challenges: inadequate emergency service like the Ambulance Services in the rural areas

· Full Access: Access to Maternal health care is constraint by finance, With the Current Free Maternal Health Care (FMHC), case like severe bleeding (hemorrhage) is not covered under the system and under NHIS. Currently about 19% of the maternal health care is cash and carry based.

· Quality of Service: the Ratio of Midwifes to population In Ghana is 1: 5300 giving a short fall of 5000 Midwifes.

· Heath professionals must take a lead in the policy making discussion on Maternal Health and Health.

An Optimal Tax Regime for Ghana: Work is ongoing:

IMANI is asking what level of public spending is desirable for a developing country such as Ghana. Should the government spend one-tenth, one-third or half of the national income? The size of government expenditure is naturally associated with the ideal level of tax revenue. Taxes are a necessary evil, but a generally accepted view is that they should not be a disincentive for profitable economic activity. IMANI is asking these questions as we prepare to have our board member, Dr. Tony Oteng-Gyasi, Founder and CEO of Tropical Cables Limited deliver a national lecture on the subject soon.

Important News and Articles:
Today, July 8, 2013 on Metro Television
IMANI's President, Franklin Cudjoe will speak on Ghana's Parliament initiative to have a code of conduct for Members of Parliament. This will be on Newsbreak@ 10:00am on Metro TV.

IMANI's President, Franklin Cudjoe will speak on 'HARD TRUTH', a 30-minute interview on Viasat 1 Television at 4:00pm GMT on Wednesday, 10thJuly 2013. He will speak on various issues challenges facing Ghana's economy today

Five BigIdeas for the Global Struggle Against Fake Medicines

Fake and counterfeit medicines and medical products, and their harmful impact on global health, are receiving more global attention, thanks to IMANI's honorary head of Research, Mr. Bright Simons. Read more @ http://www.imanighana.com/five-big-ideas-for-the-global-struggle-against-fake-medicines/

Obama Can Only Light Up Africa With Its Own 'LeadingLights'

Obama announced his 'signature' initiative for Africa in Cape Town, South Africa. It is a new US plan to advance the electrification of Africa. As one of the people who have in the past complained about the seeming lack of new ideas for a 'strategic engagement with Africa' from the Obama White House, IMANI's Bright Simons welcomes renewed energy towards that direction. Read more @

http://www.imanighana.com/obama-can-only-light-up-africa-with-its-own-leading-lights-bright-simons/

Status of Earlier Work Reported:
1. Discussing Education Prospects: The Feasibility of the Government's 200 Senior High School Building Projects- Draft report almost ready

2. Fees from all expatriates and botched registration of citizens. The Need for a Unified Biometric Database in Ghana. - IMANI planning a project with the World Bank in Ghana to help.

3. The Social Security and National Insurance Trust's Latest Charge: ''ILLEGAL' collection of pensions from foreign businesses whose contract employees are not required to pay pensions to SSNIT but to private corporate trustees who process claims efficiently and effectively.- Pending

4. Evaluating Expenditure Plans for several Government Ministries: The Need to Justify budgets in order to cut the deficits. - Finalizing execution of this project with the World Bank.

7. Discussing Plans to create a forum to train young people about the virtues/ethics of political and economic leadership. - On Going

8. Discussing ways to support promising young leaders in politics and business to become ethical Leaders.on going

Signed,
Franklin Cudjoe
Founding President & CEO, IMANI
Support IMANI today: for enquiries about how to financially and materially support IMANI, please [email protected] or call 0302 972 939. Your support will sustain the scholarship of our TEN research assistants who are working very hard. Follow us on Face book @ https://www.facebook.com/imanicenter?ref=hl . Sign up for updates @ www.imanighana.org

IMANI is a Ghana-based think-tank and research institute dedicated to the promotion of the institutions of a free society throughout Africa. IMANI has been consistently ranked among the top 10 think tanks in Africa and among the top 100 worldwide, out of a pool of nearly 10,000 organisations by the prestigious University of Pennsylvania, which ranks the world's largest and most prestigious think tank research program.

Ishac Diwan, Former World Bank Country Director for Ghana, Africa Region, (Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea, Ghana) - said of IMANI- 'IMANI has grown, within a short time of its existence, to become a stalwart for encouraging reality-based solutions to a complex array of economic and social problems in and beyond Ghana. IMANI is known to highlight those critical areas of economic and political policy that find resonance across the artificial borders of Africa.

The think-tank courts audience from important policy makers and drives policy matters to the very top of the priority lists of African governments and their allies in the intergovernmental and non-governmental communities.

The World Bank has on a number of occasions, collaborated with IMANI, as a whole, and with its fellows, on individual bases, on several important local and global assignmentsIn 2010 for instance, the World Bank asked IMANI to help shape the World Bank's strategy for Africa for the next decade. The task was successfully undertaken, even beyond expected results.'

Respectfully yours,
Franklin Cudjoe

Please READ these Africa Report articles:
IMANI Shines in International Think Tank Rankings!
Five tasks for Ghana's incoming president
The 50 mostinfluential Africans: Franklin Cudjoe
Franklin Cudjoe Declared World Economic Forum's Young Global Leader
Cudjoe is Founding President of IMANI Center for Policy & Education. IMANI is a Think Tank that has carved a niche in Ghana's policy environment for putting out objective, independent analysis and critique on many issues, using tried and tested techniques that apply across different disciplines. IMANI has won two John Templeton Foundation awards, the first Antony & Dorian Fisher Award and cited in the United Kingdom's House of Commons' debate on aid and development in Africa as well as by South Africa's Supreme Court Judge on patents and intellectual property. In 2010 IMANI led the World Bank's Africa region's taskforce within to investigate what Africans needed from the World Bank. Email : [email protected] Web : www.imanighana.org