The three day Aggrey- Fraser- Guggisberg Memorial Lecture, organised by the University of Ghana (UG) Legon, ended on Friday with special congregation to eulogize the three men who contributed so much to Ghanaian intellectualism.
The lecture is an annual event in remembrance of James Kwagyir Aggrey, a scholar, Alexander G.Fraser, educationist and Gordon Guggisberg, Governor of the Gold Coast, all founding fathers of Achimota School.
It brought together members of the diplomatic corps, academicians, educationists and students to harp on the theme: “Globalization and Governance; what does the future hold.”
Dr. Ernesto Zedillo, Former President of Mexico, delivered this year’s lecture on the “Latin America Development Experience: any Relevance of for African Counties” and “The Unequal Race between Globalization and Governance: Recent History and Speculations about the Future (Part 1 and 2)”.
In his concluding lecture, Dr Zedillo said there was pressure on governments and multilateral organisations to adopt policies and legislations that favour the maintenance of public information resources and free and open communications.
“To encourage attempts to build and maintain open information resources, as public goods, they should freely be accessible and usable by all.”
Dr Zedilo noted that the failure of the International community to facilitate the movement of Global Free Goods (GFG) which was the theoretical concept of public goods.
He added that public goods does was discriminate with regard to the geographical region in which they were produced or consumed.
He said the core product in the sector of information has unique attributes, not shared by others, drawing an analogy that: “The steel used to construct a building or the boots worn by workers cannot be consumed by anyone else.”
He scolded the G20 countries for not doing enough to prevent their own domestic economic challenges as well as diffusing external pressures.
Dr Zedillo is the Director of the Yale Centre for the study of Globalization, a professor in the field of International Economics and Politics, Prof. of International and Area studies and Prof Adjunct of Forestry and Environmental studies at Yale University.
He is also a member of World Economic Forum, Trilateral Commission, International Advisory Board of the Council on Foreign Relations Group of 30, Peterson Institute for International Economics and Board of Trustees of the International Crisis Group, Club de Madrid and Trustee of the Fundacion Carolina, Madrid, Spain.
