European Union celebrates European Development Day

Accra, Dec. 6, GNA - Mr Kurt Cornelis, Head of Co-operation, European Union (EU) delegation in Ghana on Monday commended Ghana for making a tremendous headway in attaining greater proportion of her Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) targets for 2015.

However, he indicated that with current records on the health and sanitation sectors it was obvious Ghana had not performed well in various sectors and needed to step-up efforts to catch up with the time frame for attaining all the MDG targets.

Mr Cornelis made the commendation when addressing journalists at a session in Accra to mark the Fifth celebration of European Development Day (EDD) in Brussels, Belgium under the auspices of the European Commission. The Day instituted in 2006, is often celebrated in the form of a policy forum which highlights recent developments and important initiatives "to be continued".

They are in key areas of development cooperation such as peace, security, democracy, good governance, economic crisis, international finance, free and fair trade, food security, resources, the media, human rights and culture.

The 2010 edition of the EDD would bring together Heads of State, representatives of national governments, Members of the European Parliament, European development finance institutions, key civil society representatives, NGOs, as well as Business Europe and the International Finance Corporation (IFC).

In addition, it offers the EU and Member States the chance to take stock regularly of some of its founding values, such as solidarity, respect between peoples, elimination of poverty, commitment to international laws and the principles of the Charter of the United Nations. Mr Cornelis said though Ghana had made progress in her development drive over the past years through the cooperation of both EU and other development partners, she still needed much more support in order to attain the status of a middle income country.

He said the EU Co-operation had focused on three major areas of development in Ghana which involved poverty reduction, promoting democratic governance and providing budget support to the Government. Mr Cornelis said with its support for road infrastructure two new contract agreements would be signed for the construction of the Eastern and Western Corridor roads in the country to help improve inter-connectivity between Ghana and other ECOWAS countries.

He said the EU had committed about seven million Euros to support Ghana's Election 2012, and explained that the funds would be used to support major institutions such as the National Media Commission (NMC), Electoral Commission (EC), and National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) and the Constitutional Review Commission (CRC) for capacity building and mass education.

Mr Cornelis said the EU had various on-going projects in the water and sanitation sectors due to end in 2012. "However the EU Cooperation is still considering whether to continue with the same type of development support or to change its focus."

Mr Claude Maerten, Ambassador and Head of EU Delegation in Ghana, said series of meetings had been scheduled with various organisations, including the media and other EU institutions in the country, to discuss the EU's policies to be implemented in future.

He explained that these meetings would also discuss political, social, economic and migration between the two continents as well as trade issues and sign new partnership and trade agreements to enhance development and foster better trade between Ghana, other ECOWAS and EU countries.