Ghana Skills Bank to be Launched on June 29

The Ghana Skills Bank, a database or inventory that will stock in a computer based system the status, professional qualifications and experiences of Ghanaians living particularly in the United States and other parts of the World would be launched at the Ghana embassy in Washington DC on Saturday June 29, 2002 from 2-5pm.

The project, which is one of the star programmes of H.E. Alan Kyerematen, is geared towards creating a bigger space for Ghana’s development agenda. It will seek to measure Ghana’s human resource strength, which could be tapped for home use especially in the areas of capacity building for the health sector, information technology, agriculture, investment promotion and all other areas in which Ghana is in need.

According to the Minister Counselor for Information and Director of Public Affairs, Mr. Ivor Agyeman-Duah, Ghanaskillsbank .com will be the primary site address with a domain name of ghanaskillsbank.com running on a search machine. The features of the website will include an opening statement from Ambassador Kyerematen and details of objectives and membership, a personality of the month column which will feature Ghanaian achievers.

The ceremony on June 29 will have as Guest of Honor the former U.S Secretary of Transport Hon. Slater. The first Professional Featured Personality for global leadership will be the U.N. Secretary –General Kofi Annan. The first Special Featured Professional for the Sciences who will attend the ceremony will be Dr. Vincent Anku, one of the top authorities on Cancer treatment in the US and the Director of The Cleveland Cancer Institute, Inc and an elected member of the prestigious The Cosmos Club of U.S. whose membership include Nobel Laureates, Supreme Court Judges and eminent scholars from all fields. Dr. Anku has since 1995 invested over five million dollars in the Ghanaian economy. According to the embassy spokesman, ‘the ability to measure the human development strength of Ghana in the United States and the inevitable desire to use technology as its vehicle is the only sure way to progress in the age in which we live.’

Mr. Agyeman-Duah explains further saying, Ghana has some of the most powerful professionals working in sensitive positions in America but ‘because we can only estimate, those of them who are even willing to help cannot. We are unable to congregate let alone plot strategies for the sake of the home front.’ Whilst remittances home constitute a good amount of national foreign revenue, Mr. Agyeman-Duah says, it is still not ‘the best axis on which to wheel our developmental aims. Ghanaians do not necessarily need to re-locate to Ghana before they can transfer their skills; we can do that via the computer.’ He said.

Among a large but diversified professional grouping expected are Nick Robertson, a former Director of the Public Affairs Section of the U.S. Embassy in Accra now of the Bureau of African Affairs, State Department, Washington, DC, who will collaborate with Okyrema Asante in a live jazz performance. All Ghanaians professionals are being encouraged to make further inquiries and patronize the development of the web.