Next NDC government will formulate economic diplomacy blueprint - John Mahama

The next National Democratic Congress (NDC) Government from January 7, 2021 to January 6 2025, will formulate an economic diplomacy blueprint to serve as a policy guide to diplomats and all staff of the Foreign Service.

The NDC Economic Diplomacy Blueprint would provide clear deliverables under Ghana’s economic diplomacy agenda, enhance the general conditions of service for Foreign Service Staff including; restoring duty waivers on vehicles for staff returning from postings.

The NDC Election 2020 “People’s Manifesto: Jobs and Prosperity for All,” focus on International Relations and Foreign Affairs seeks also to leverage and place Ghana’s hosting of the African Continental Free Trade Secretariat at the heart of our industrialisation drive by ensuring that Ghana becomes Africa’s trade, transport and investment hub.

The NDC under the leadership of former President John Dramani Mahama as the Presidential Candidate and Professor Jane Naana Opoku Agyemenag the Vice Presidential Candidate said it would restore the high regard for career diplomats, enhance esprit de corps and meaningful career progression deserving of career diplomats by ensuring that majority of ambassadors and envoys were selected from the stock of career diplomats.

The NDC said it would establish a Consular Support Fund as a line item in the budget of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration to cater for distressed Ghanaians abroad who may require urgent consular assistance.

It would conduct an asset inventory of all diplomatic property with the view to pursuing an aggressive asset improvement and maintenance programme-this review will also seek to address the phenomenon of unsustainable expenditure on rent in favour of the more economically prudent option of owning our own property.

The NDC said if given the change to governing again it would deepen Ghana’s famed Pan African credentials by putting forth a raft of policies targeted at forging stronger and concrete bonds with Africans in the diaspora and African Americans beyond the occasional visits afforded by “PANAFEST” and “The Year of Return” to a more permanent mutually benefiting relationship.

The NDC said it would ensure that consistent with the party’s track record, “we will actively canvass for many more Ghanaians to assume high offices in reputable multilateral organisations”.

The NDC said it would renew Ghana’s commitment to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the African Union’s Agenda 2063 by fully domesticating and aligning our development goals across all sectors with these global imperatives.

It would further enhance Ghana’s internationally renowned image in peace operations which marked a milestone this year in commemoration of 60 years since Ghana’s first peace operations deployment in the Congo.

The next government of the NDC would improve conditions of engagement and also increase the number of females in troop deployment consistent with modern UN standards.

The NDC said it would protect the inviolability of the premises of all Foreign Missions in Ghana as required under the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations in order to avoid the recent embarrassing spectacle, which created a diplomatic stand-off between Ghana and Nigeria when the latter’s property were demolished in Accra.

The next NDC government would reappraise the geographical representation and economic significance of Ghana’s diplomatic and consular missions and establish new missions strategic to the national development especially in the areas of trade and investment, tourism, and educational opportunities.

The NDC in its manifesto pledged to appoint trade officers to specifically designated Ghana diplomatic missions to aggressively market Ghana’s competitiveness in trade and investment activity and spearhead the implementation of agreed strategies.

It would ensure that Ghana continued to play an active and lead role in ECOWAS and worked in concert with other member states to consolidate the gains of the Community and to achieve its defined goals.

The government of the NDC would also increase collaboration within the United Nations, the Commonwealth, and other multilateral organisations to fight existing and emerging threats to global peace, security, and sustainable development including; climate change and global warming, international terrorism, cybercrime, piracy, money laundering, narcotics trade, human trafficking and pandemics.

The NDC said its next government would deepen Ghana’s involvement in the affairs of the Francophone and UEMOA with a view to better understand those organisations and reaping the maximum benefits from them given our geographical position of being surrounded by three Francophone countries.

According to the NDC, Ghana provide a congenial environment for the enhancement of productive international relations both at bilateral and multilateral levels for the adoption and promotion of common, yet beneficial positions, encouraging mutual understanding and cooperation which inure to its overall national growth, security and political and socio-economic development.

The NDC said Ghana’s foreign policy would continue to be driven by the nation’s commitment to credible and sustainable international peace, security and development as necessary prerequisites for the effective promotion and protection of enlightened national interest and aspirations as outlined in domestic policies.