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
