Short-term development plans to meet Ghana’s long-term vision

ACCRA, 16 OCT  – To realise Ghana’s long term Vision 2020, various short-term development plans have been implemented to ensure that economic growth and prosperity are realised.
In order to achieve this, Ghana’s administrations are required to craft their own four-year medium-term development programmes based on existing economic and social situations.
“We have a constitution that says that when any president comes into office, within two years he should present his coordinated programme of economic and social development policies to Parliament,” said Dr Isaac Frimpong Mensa-Bonsu, director for Plan Coordination in Ghana’s National Development Planning Commission (NDPC).
Mensa-Bonsu said this in a meeting with a Namibian delegation here Monday, while sharing some of the strategic intervention approaches his country has made through the commission to fight poverty and create a more resilient economy.
The meeting was held for Namibia to learn from Ghana’s experiences in areas of national development strategies and implementation thereof.
“As a nation, every government should ensure that all necessary action is taken to ensure that the national economy is managed in such a manner as to maximise the rate of economic development and to secure the maximum welfare, freedom and happiness of every person in Ghana,” he said.
Ghana: Vision 2020 aims to make this west African country a middle income country by that year and as such a series of development plans were developed since 1995.
However, when poverty levels started decreasing, the commission realised that this decline did not emanate from growth. The inequality gap widened, leading to the establishment of the Poverty Reduction Strategy.
Another programme implemented in 2014 was the Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda for four years which was completed in 2017.
A Ministry of Monitoring and Evaluation was also established by President Nana Akufo-Addo’s administration after he took office in January 2017. The ministry ensures that flagship programmes are implemented because the country takes monitoring and evaluation more seriously, Mensa Bonsu said.
He noted that the current president has his vision too, which is to create an optimistic, self-confident and prosperous nation through the creative exploitation of human and natural resources and operating within a democratic, open and fair society in which mutual trust and economic opportunities exist for all.
According to the World Bank, Ghana’s strong economic growth in the past two decades helped cut the country’s poverty rate in half, from 52,6 per cent to 21,4 per cent between 1991 and 2012.
Ghana has a population of about 29 million people.
The 20-member Namibian delegation is in Accra to meet with various industries and missions to explore market potential between the two countries in, among others, trade and investment, tourism, environment, agriculture, aviation, maritime, petroleum and power.
They left for Accra on Sunday and returns to Windhoek on Sunday.
(NAMPA)