...to accelerating northern Ghana development
Northern Patriots in Research and Advocacy (NORPRA) wish to call on the Board and Management of the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) to, in the reshaping and refocusing agenda of SADA, still consider guinea fowl production on commercial scale and tree planting in the northern savannah ecological zone as key programmes to accelerate and transform the savannah area into wealth and prosperity.
It is important to note that the high level of poverty, the difficult agro-climatic conditions for most agricultural production, the suitability of semi-arid agro-ecological condition for guinea fowl and the long tradition of rearing guinea fowl in the three regions of the north as well as the unmet demands for its meat and eggs both domestic and international markets were the main reasons for the formulation and implementation of the Guinea project under SADA.
Again, as part of measures to mitigate the severe impacts of climate change on livelihoods of Ghanaians particularly those in northern Ghana who, in fact, bear a brunt of the climate change impact, the tree planting project was introduced.
Regrettably, the two well-thought pro-poor and climate resilient projects were wrongly implemented with issues of both perceived and real corruption surrounding the inception and implementation processes.
Considering the great opportunities that the two projects have for rapid socio-economic transformation of northern Ghana in particular and the country as a whole, NORPRA is urging SADA not to shy away from the self-embarrassment caused in the previous unsuccessful implementation of the two projects but use lessons learnt from the failure and do things positively different to ensure that the guinea fowl and tree planting projects are re-introduced and sustained under the restructured, reshaped and refocused SADA to relieve the savannah zone of chronic poverty, deprivation and underdevelopment.
Ayorogo Adongo Bismark
(Director)
0209313630