Ishmael Nii Dodoo / © ishdodoo / IG
Dr. Ishmael Nii Dodoo, a former Special Policy Advisor to the UN Secretary General’s Adviser for the Sahel is rallying support with Ga Dangme natives in the diaspora to set up an alliance for change to help alleviate urban poverty in the southern Ghanaian community and of Ga Dangmes all over Ghana.
The social movement, known as the Ga Dangme Alliance for social change sets to raise consciousness of the challenges facing the people in that Ghanaian community, especially pertaining to pertinent issues confronting the youths in the area, and improving access to basic social amenities.
The Doctor (PhD) expressed his support for the alliance on a mid-June 2024 program hosted by Joy News Live in Ghana, which was monitored by TheAfricanDream.net. The ex-diplomat said that although there are diverse opportunities in the area, most of the youths cannot access them because they lack the needed technical capacity and skills to pursue such opportunities.
According to Wikipedia, the Ga-Dangbe, (Ga-Dangme, Ga-Adangme or Ga-Adangbe) are an ethnic group in Ghana, Togo and Benin. The Ga and Dangbe people are grouped respectively as part of the Ga–Dangme ethnolinguistic group. The Ga-Dangmes are one ethnic group that lives primarily in the Greater Accra region of present day Ghana.
Elaborating the reasons behind his support for the people, he explained that even though fishing was the main source of livelihood for people in Ga Dangme, the sector is currently not booming and hence the need for alternative sources of living for the people there. He also didn’t miss out the deplorable state of healthcare and educational facilities in the area.
“Today when you look at the Ga Dangme community from the Chorkor area all the way to Prampram to Ningo, those communities have arguably the highest rate of poverty. Most of their schools are in very dilapidated conditions .These areas have a youthful population of about 2.5 to 2.6 million people, a very significant number and 80% of them are between the ages of 13 to 25 years and most of them are not going to school,” said Dr. Nii Dodoo.
Dr. Nii Dodoo believes the people of Ga Dangme should be able to use politics to leverage their developmental needs and encouraged them on the Joy News Live program to ensure their interest are taken into consideration. He continued to say that this is necessary in order to lift people out of poverty: “there should be a deliberate policy to strengthen action…“
“…Ga Dangme people feel short changed in this Republic, If you look at the wealth of Greater Accra, the World Bank indicates that by 2030 the Greater Accra wealth is estimated to be about 35 billion dollars. How much of that good and services is benefitting the Ga Dangme Community,” Dr. Nii Dodoo rhetorically asked during the program.
“You have those youthful individuals close to 2 million people , all they see is poverty and they feel like their settlement is pushed to the coastal areas, this is their land and they are seeing all these challenges around them.”
Dr. Nii Dodoo, who worked with the United Nations for close to 25 years within over 40 countries globally, had his career dedicated to helping to deal with issues of poverty and abject poverty that engulfed communities in the respective countries he worked with.
He played a critical role in the Sahel region especially at a time where there were a lot of extreme attacks in over 10 countries in the Sahel.
His opinion on the development of Ghana as a whole points out that although Ghana could be seen as a glorious country, it is sliding down a bit he feels. In his view, businesses in the country are struggling to survive and the rule of law has issues that needs to be dealt with.
He said there is the urgent need to fix the international image on how the Ghanaian economy is being managed, and industrialization drive should be taken seriously. The implication of this according to him, is that without international trade the economy cannot grow.
“There is the need to focus on Ghana’s Agricultural sector, Valve chain agriculture and making sure that production, marketing and trade be set up in industrial sectors and link them to human capital strategy. You need to have a population that has the requisite skills and talents that would be able to attract foreign direct investment into the country,” he said.
According to Dr. Nii Dodoo, the educational system in the country should be able to harness the skills and talents of the youths in the country to enable them tap into opportunities in the sub-region, especially in the area of mobile technology.
