Symposium on poverty reduction strategy underway

Accra, May 9, GNA - The Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS II), the second generation of government's policy paper on national development, was on Tuesday launched in Accra. The goal of the GPRS II is to speed up and diversify national development so that Ghana could attain middle-income status within the next decade.

Addressing the launch and the opening session of a national symposium on the GPRS II, Mr Joseph Henry Mensah, Chairman, National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), said the new development agenda represented a higher gear in the policies and objectives in the national development process.

Mr Mensah said the GPRS II examined the programmes, policies, and investments that were needed to pull Ghana to the status of a middle-income economy through human resource development and the strengthening of development cooperation.

"Analysis of the critical factors in the success of some of our contemporaries in this matter of economic transition has shown clearly quality of human resources as overwhelmingly the most fundamental," he said.

The national symposium is to introduce the roadmap and begin the re-orientation of individuals, businesses and public officials towards the achievement of the set target.

It will examine the proposed growth plans of the GPRS II in various sectors and give participants the opportunity to contribute ideas to the attainment of the ultimate goals.

Mr. Mensah noted that a working population with relevant training in vocational and technical skills, when combined with a managerial class capable of applying the gains in productivity of modern technology, were the single most powerful propellant for the achievement of rapid economic growth.

He said Ghana must find in the next few years, large amounts of money to invest in human resource and infrastructure to sustain a fast-growing economy.

Mr Mensah said funds from Official Development Assistance programmes was the kind of financing that would make possible improvements required to launch Ghana into a new trajectory of growth. "It is our duty as planners and public servants to demonstrate that Ghana deserves to benefit from these potential flows and additional development support."

He said it was time Ghanaians joined together to share the responsibility of financing national development, adding that the concept of a benevolent government paying for what the country needed was wholly untenable and a serious threat to national development enterprise.

Professor George Gyan Baffour, a Deputy Minister of Finance, said for many years, the country's economic indicators had been pointing in positive directions.

Inflation has declined from 40.1 per cent in 2000 to 9.9 per cent with the hope of a further fall to 8.8 per cent.

Exchange rates have been relatively stable and external reserves are now pegged at almost four months of import cover. Prof. Gyan Baffour said the negative trends in health care, education and sanitation had all been reversed.

"The obnoxious cash and carry system has virtually disappeared. Access to health care has increased with the introduction of the national health insurance and other exemptions."

He said school enrolment was at its highest with the introduction of the capitation grants and the rehabilitation of dilapidated schools while access to drinking water had increased in most rural communities. Mr Peter Linder, the German Ambassador to Ghana, said government alone could not successfully implement the GPRS II hence the need for active engagement of all stakeholders at all levels of society. He said although the country had made good progress within the last years much more needed to be done to meet the ambitious targets of 8 per cent growth and achieving middle-income status by 2015. 09 May 06