Ghana Civil Society Platform On SDGs Celebrate Global Week of Action On SDGs

The Ghana Civil Society Organizations Platform on the Sustainable Development Goals has celebrated the Global Week of Action under the theme, "We Stand Together for a Peaceful, Just and Sustainable World."

Speaking during a press briefing in Accra, National Coordinator of the Ghana CSO Platform on SDGs, Madam Ugonna Ukaigwe entreated the Media to educate Ghanaians on the impact of the implementation of the SDGs so far.

She was of the view that although it is a little over 11 years more to the full realization of all 17 goals, 60 percent of Ghanaians do not have knowledge of the SDGs and therefore called on the Media to sentisize Ghanaians on the importance of the SDGs.

Similarly,Deputy Country Director of the Korea International Cooperation Agency Ghana, Ms. Jeongyi Choi, mentioned among other things that, " As a premier development Agency of the Republic of Korea, we have mainstreamed the SDGs into our international development cooperation through our global Mid-Term Sectoral Strategy 2016-2020 with the vision of contributing to the global co-prosperity of humanity and global peace and the SDGs realization."

According to the Deputy Country Director of KOICA, the organization has incorporated the SDGs into their aid programs by taking into account the development goals and needs of our partner countries and tailor the interventions to address the prevailing challenges.

She said some of the flagship projects presently being implemented in Ghana include SDGs 1 and 2 of ensuring no poverty and zero hunger, KOICA Ghana office in partnership with the Ministry of Employment and Labor Relations and Department of Cooperative is supporting capacity building of Farmer based Cooperative and organizations in the Northern , Upper East and Upper West Regions with a budget $6.18 million.

In terms of SDG3, guaranteeing good health care, KOICA is providing assistance in improving Community-Based Health and Planning Services (CHPS+) in all the 13 districts in the Upper East Region with a budget of

$9 million. Therefore, CHPS is helping to improve service delivery from the community level all the way to the final referral point through capacity building of community health officers as well as empowering community health volunteers through training and provision of incentives and supervision to augment the health service delivery.

On the other hand, the Global Health Security Agenda is $7.5 million funded joint pledge collaboration between the Republic of Korea through KOICA and the US Government through the Center for Disease Control and Prevention to combat infectious disease in Ghana.

KOICA's intersectoral social intervention investment programme called "Better Life for Girls in Ghana" in

collaboration with UNICEF has provided $5.5 million funding currently being implemented in the Northern and Oti Regions and it seeks to address of gender stereotypes and social norms which impact negatively on girls between the ages of 10 and 19.

The coalition as part of the 2019 Global Week of Action on SDGs calls on government to promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels and promote policies that fundamentally protect the general public interest.

The government also according to the group must address multiple dimensions of inequality, deliver on their promise to "Leaving No-one Behind ", and tackle the root causes of inequality through tax justice and social protection and end discrimination against women and marginalized communities in every country.

Lastly, the coalition entreat Government to take concrete steps to protect humanity and human rights, show stronger commitment to move the economy away from fossil fuels, and towards clean, renewable energy sources so as to halve carbon emissions by 2030 and to eliminate them altogether by 2050 at the latest so that we limit global temperature rise to 1.5C degrees.

The meeting was used to unveil a schedule Report for 2019 by the Ghana CSO Platform on SDGs.