Daasebre To Declare Media Development Day

Daasebre Prof. Emeritus Oti Boateng, the Omanhene of the New Juaben Traditional Area, President of the Eastern Regional House of Chiefs, and a Patron of the Media-Corporate Response Initiative is to declare 25th October as the Media Development Day in Ghana. This declaration is to mark a successful milestone in the quest to establish a Development Organ as a collaborative initiative with media bodies and houses to promote Business Advocacy towards the implementation of a globally-competitive model for Rural Economic Development.

The day is intended to be observed as a Media Development stock-taking calendar under the Media Corporate Response Initiative in the country. The day shall also be used to promote the Media-Corporate Response Initiative Programmes

The launching of the programme scheduled for the Tuesday, 25th of October 2011 under the auspices of the DANIDA-USAID-EU sponsored BUSAC Fund is to formally set the basis for the establishent of the Media-Corporate Response Initiative.

With the adoption of this historic initiative, the M-CRI shall strengthen the media’s engagement with BUSAC Fund to incorporate Business advocacy as an integral part of the Media’s development role, and to build the institutional capacity of the M-CRI to respond to the mandate of corporate media and Media involvement in the Local Government System.

According to Daasebre Oti Boateng, in the wake of the global financial crisis and the general global development stalemate, Africa remains at the receiving end of this development crisis pendulum. In the current global state of despondency, the fundamental option for Africa is to engender Local Planning in Global context, and not desperately wailing and waiting for solutions to be discovered elsewhere for a bail-out to Africa.

Daasebre said, he is convinced that a development-oriented media is crucial to anchor a new development model to engineer solutions for Africa’s development.

He underscored the fact that the Media-Corporate Response Initiative (M-CRI) would in concert with the Azongo Development Planning Consult to pioneer a development model to add a development intervention chapter to the Agenda setting role of the Media in Africa.

He hinted that the launching of the M-CRI on the 25th of October shall be used to unveil a new model in Micro-Finance that would become an important identity of Ghanaian scholarship to be promoted as a flagship global Micro-Finance model.

The launching of the M-CRI is also intended to formally commission the Model Building Research in 4 districts within the Southern and Northern sectors of the country to pilot the Micro-Finance model for the rest of the districts in the country.

The Research would be carried out in four Districts:

1. Southern Sector-Central Region-Cape Coast Metropolitan Assembly and Twifo Hemang Lower Denkyira District

2. Northern Sector-Northern Region, Tamale Metropolitan Assembly and Central Gonja District

The Model Building Research (MBR) is to establish a District Micro-Finance Regime to promote Enterprise Development, and to provide a template to determine the coordinated role of the District Assembly, SMEs and Micro-Finance Institutions in district jurisdictions to promote Local Economic Development.