Ghana: Democracy and Development in Action

I had five days of intensive meetings and project visits in Ghana last week. Ghana is considered one of the ‘success stories’ of development in West Africa. It has a population of about 23 million people living in the capital city of Accra, smaller cities and towns like Kumasi and Cape Coast, and spread across large areas of savannah and forest.

On Monday June 18th I was invited to give the Opening Address at the meeting of the Consultative Group for Ghana, the annual gathering of government representatives, donors and some civil society and business representatives. My remarks [6 pages, 58kb] covered the issues of how to promote the Right to Health; using trade, investment and development policies to promote decent livelihood opportunities for people across the country; and the importance of promoting women’s rights within development programs.

In recent years, the people and Government of Ghana, with substantial support from donors, have done an impressive job of reducing poverty and generating economic growth. But big challenges remain. I think the most important is finding ways to address the increasing gap between rich and poor, and this relates to how well the economy generates decent work opportunities.

A second is how to make more progress on meeting the Millennium Development Goals in health and education, especially attacking the maternal mortality rates which remain very high. A third is finding a solution for the country’s energy crisis which inevitably hampers economic activity. And finally I hope that the government, donor community and civil society work more ambitiously on promoting women’s rights and women’s equality.

On Tuesday and Friday, I attended a Pan African Youth Leadership Forum organized by Friends of Africa, a non-profit organization based in New York (photos). The President of Friends of Africa, Ms. Onyeka Obasi, brought together about 30 young leaders from countries all over Africa including Sierra Leone, Burundi, Somalia, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Benin, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, DRC, Egypt, and of course Ghana. The focus of this Forum was ‘Democracy in Action: Renewing the Vision’.

In my opening comments I told these young people what I had said to the Consultative Group meeting as well – that at this moment in time African countries can be proud of their accomplishments in terms of growth and development, but also should be bold and visionary in how they move forward in addressing the challenges of inequalities, employment and progress in the social sectors.

These young representatives of organizations are encouraging the African Union to adopt the African Youth Charter [22 pages, 334kb]and are submitting a plan of action to the African Union Summit taking place in Accra in late June and early July. I urged them to speak to their own governments, and intergovernmental organizations like the New Economic Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) to encourage them to adopt a human rights framework that, like the rule of law, will contribute to better development outcomes.

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