Veep Calls For Collaboration Between Ghana And The Hunger Project To Ensure Food Security

The Vice President, Kwesi Amissah-Arthur has commended The Hunger Project, a global non-governmental organisation, for their communal spirit in helping the economic empowerment drive of people living in the deprived communities.

Mr Amissah Arthur said the project had resonance in the country as it responded to the very needs of the peoplefor its commitment to improving the lives of the people in communities it serve.

He was speaking when he received a delegation from THP which has presence in 22 countries, at the Flagstaff House on Tuesday.

The Vice- President Kwesi Bekoe Amissah Arthur also called for a greater collaboration between Ghana and the Hunger Project to ensure food security in the rural areas of the country.

He noted that one area the Hunger project can assist Ghana in attaining sustained food security is to empower rural women in Food and agricultural production.On sanitation Mr Amissah-Arthur said the country had made progress on the attainment of the various Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) except the seventh goal which had to do with ensuring environmental cleanliness and sustainability.

.He indicated that among the government's priority in the agricultural sector was to ensure the evacuation of food from the farms to storage facilities in a bid to maintain food security in Ghana.

It was for that defect that the Vice-President told the delegation that the government had declared the first Saturday of every month as national sanitation day where the citizenry were enjoined to embark on massive clean-up exercises in their various communities.

He expressed the government's resolve to support and partner with THP in the quest to collective make life better for the people.

The Chief Executive Officer and Global President of THP, Mrs Asa Skogstrom Feldt, who led the delegation, said the project established its presence in Ghana in 1996 working in the rural communities with the purpose of providing economic relief to the people.

She expressed the project's readiness to partner and share its working experience in the country with the aim of changing the mind-set of the people through self-reliance towards the attainment of sustainable development.

The Ghana Country Director of The Hunger Project, Mr Samuel Afranie, said the project was currently working in 32 districts in five regions- Eastern, Central, Greater Accra, Volta and the Ashanti Regions.

He explained that epicentres had been set up in the operating districts with multipurpose facilities where beneficiaries undergo various capacity building programmes to orient them in undertaking self-development ventures.