Over 800 million people under nourished

Amnesty International World Primer Report on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR) revealed that 842 million people are under nourished and 6.6 million children die before attaining age five.

The statistics also revealed that 61 million children have no access to education and slum population is increasing and is expected to reach 889 million by 2020.

Mr Lawrence Amesu, Director of Amnesty International (AI), announced this at a dialogue meeting with stakeholders on Constitution Review Process organized by the Department of Human Development (DHD) of the National Catholic Secretariat (NCS) with collaboration with Star-Ghana in Accra.

The meeting was to assess progress made so far in their bid to influence the final outcome of the national constitution review and see how they could redouble their efforts to fully realize their expectations from the constitution review.

Mr Amesu said other relevant information in the primer report was that International Covenant on ECSR was adopted in 1966 and as of 2014, 161 states have become parties to it.

He said although that was encouraging they do not want the number per se, rather how the states are honouring their obligations.

He said states’ obligation were divided into two categories namely, immediate and progressive realization and while some rights are expected to be respected and protected immediately, some others are expected to be fulfilled progressively or gradually.

Mr Amesu therefore stressed the need to put ESCR in the revised Constitution to have legal backing to call on governments to honour their obligations or send them to court if they are not fulfilling their obligations.

“It will also ensure that successive governments build upon the progress made by previous governments,” he added.

Mr Samuel Zan Akologo, Executive Secretary, DHD-NCS, said lack of publicity of the amendment proposals leaves Ghanaians in worrying doubt about their expectations for the reforms.

He therefore called for a more definitive timetable for the process and also on the government to allocate sufficient resources to the institutions responsible to bring the constitution review to a successful closure.

Mr Cletus Avoka, a Member of Parliament for Zebilla, called for public education to explain issues in the proposals to ensure success of the forthcoming national referendum.