Civil society organizations urged to involve in civic education

Kumasi, July 12, GNA - Mrs Augustina Akosua Akumanyi, Deputy National Chairperson of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), has called for the involvement of all constitutionally mandated and civil society organizations in civic education programmes.

She said civic education was an on-going process, which covered a wide range of subjects and topics and as such there was the need to involve many organizations as much as possible in the process. Speaking at a day's workshop on governance in Kumasi, Mrs Akumanyi said citizens' understanding of the Constitution and their identification with it were the only guarantees for the protection and defence of the country's fledging democracy.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in collaboration with the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) and the NCCE organized the workshop.

Thirty Regional Directors and representatives attended it from Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), NCCE, the Media and Chief Executives of civil society organizations from Ashanti, Brong-Ahafo and Western regions.

The workshop was aimed at identifying opportunities and challenges in the promotion of good governance and to determine possible solutions to the identified challenges as a way of improving governance in the country.

Topics, which were discussed at the workshop, included "Access to Justice and Human Rights", "Participation and Inclusion in Decision-Making" and "Preventive Development".

Mrs Akumanyi expressed the hope that the workshop would help the UNDP to plan programmes that would eventually bring about good governance, human rights and participation in governance.

Mr Eric Opoku, Programme Officer of UNDP, said the organization as part of formulating its programmes on governance for the year 2006-2010 deemed it expedient to involve the relevant stakeholders to identify the challenges and opportunities for enhancing democratic governance in Ghana.

He urged the participants to draw on their experiences and knowledge of governance on human rights and conflict management to enrich the discussion and provide adequate inputs to enable the UNDP to formulate a more responsive governance programme for the country.

Mr Opoku urged the participants to see themselves as partners in development and not competitors so that the development of good governance could move successfully.