Ghana on right footing, says Mould-Iddrisu

Ghana’s Minister of Education, Mrs Betty Mould-Iddrisu, has restated that her

country has made tremendous progress in the past decade that it can surely meet the

Millennium Development Goals by the target date of 2015.

Mrs Mould-Iddrisu however says Ghana and Africa stand ready to receive more help and

assistance from development partners who have real a commitment to cooperation built

on equal terms.

“We do not want to partner with countries who want to set agenda for us. Africa is

confident about its future prospects, and we need real and sustainable commitment to

reach the goal”, she told participants at an international forum in Sydney,

Australia, on Friday.

The minister was the main speaker at the “Building bridges between Africa and

Australia” forum at the University of Sydney. She lamented the fact that despite its

very rich mineral resource base, Africa accounts for only two per cent of the

world’s economy.

Food security, she said, was one area that Africa needed to improve upon if it was

to make any headway in meeting the aspirations of its citizens.

“Today, one-third of all Africans will go to bed hungry”, Mrs Mould-Iddrisu said,

adding that it was an indictment on all Africans and their governments. She also

pointed to what she called ”a deficit in our democracy” – weak governance system and

a need to strengthen Africa’s political, judicial and legislative institutions.

However, she said, Africans are pulling themselves up. Ghana has a good reputation

in its education sector, and the country has chalked tremendous progress in many

fields of endeavour. She cited Ghana’s enviable democratic governance system that

has seen peaceful transition of governments from one political party to another.

“US President Barack Obama gave Ghana a sure vote of confidence when he chose Ghana

as the first African nation to visit, much to the displeasure of our cousins in

Kenya, Nigeria and others”, she said to much laughter in the packed auditorium.

Earlier, Australia’s foreign minister Kevin Rudd said his country had made a

conscious effort to engage much more with Africa. “Australia now has diplomatic

relations with all 53 African countries, up from the 41 that existed in 2007”, he

said.

Mr Rudd said Australia was also eager to deepen economic and trade ties with Africa,

adding that Australian companies had invested $20 billion in Africa’s mining and

mineral resource sector in the past few years.

He revealed that Australia has instituted a form of “Colombo Plan” to boost Africa’s

human resource sector by offering hundreds of scholarships to Africa’s future

professionals in a whole range of areas.

The Colombo Plan was instituted in the early 1950s to set Commonwealth countries in

the Asia-Pacific region on a goal of rapid economic and social development. The

primary focus of all Colombo Plan activities, which are still going on, is on human

resources development.

Source: Martin Sannah Kwakwa

Sydney, Australia