Day: May 31, 2024

Transformational leadership is needed as a necessary tool to improve the economy of a country and help shape the future of its people.

Mr. Andy Osei Okrah, President of Young Professionals in Youth Coalition (YPYC), a youth empowerment advocacy group, who stated this, said it was important to equip transformational leaders with essential skills that would propel them to be visionary, humble, strategic thinkers and manage time judiciously.

Mr. Okrah, who was speaking at a leadership seminar and launch of 15th anniversary of YPYC in Kumasi, noted that, Ghana could change its fortunes by focusing on good leadership.

The seminar, held under the topic ‘essential leadership skills for your next transition’, was put together by the YPYC in partnership with the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST).

Mr Okrah cited the YPYC for instance, as one that had in the past 15 years developed and raised transformational leaders for Ghana and beyond, engaging directly about 30,000 young people.

The or
ganization builds the youngsters’ capacities to lead, become assertive and build career paths for themselves.

Mr. Okrah said the plan over the years was to organise events that brought together role models to motivate these youth and take them through life plans and prospects, adding that ‘all those who have had the chances to meet the role models have upgraded and are doing well for themselves.’

The seminar, among other things, exposed participants, students of the KNUST, to strategies of becoming good leaders in society.

Professor Kabila Abass, Lecturer, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, KNUST, said the College was interested in everything that bothered on leadership.

To this end, the College had established its own leadership academy to train students in leadership with the requisite skills and competencies to lead society towards socioeconomic transformation.

He asserted that it solidified the firm belief in leadership, knowing that everything was dependent on good leadership.

Prof. Abass s
aid countries in Africa, including Ghana, were in troubling times where economies were crumbling and thousands of young people unable to find jobs.

He said it was a good time for transformational leaders and managers to avail themselves for national development.

Source: Ghana News Agency

The National President of the Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana, Mr Wepia Addo Awal Adugwala has reminded policy makers that the problems bedeviling Ghana’s Agricultural sector has nothing to do with Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs).

Mr Awal Adugwala identified irrigation, Agriculture mechanization, bad roads, and access to markets as some of the pressing issues militating against agriculture and food security.

He said the presence of GMOs in Ghana would not solve food security, saying, ‘already a lot of farmers in Northern Ghana and the middle belt produce a lot of food but have no ready market, storage system, bad roads among other challenges’.

He was speaking at a workshop organised by the Center for Indigenous Knowledge and Organizational Development (CIKOD), with Members of the Ghana Agroecology Movement in the forest zone and key stakeholders in farming to streamline issues in the Agricultural sector.

The workshop sought to review activities of the farmers as well as sensitize them and cons
umers on the commercialization of GMOs on the Ghanaian market.

The workshop agreed on concrete steps to strengthen the Agroecology movement in the forest zone and discussed the implications of the commercialization of the 14 novel GMO products comprising eight maize and six soya bean products by the National Bio-Safety Authority on the Ghanaian market.

The National President called on leaders of the small holder groups to educate their farmers that ‘our traditional seeds are still the best’.

Mr Awal Adugwala urged the government to continue to invest in local seeds and support institutions like the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research to improve local varieties that can withstand climatic conditions.

The President of PFAG urged the Biosafety Authority to also label foods properly on the market to make distinction between the GMOs and organic foods.

Since 2009, CIKOD, ActionAid Ghana and the Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana (PFAG) have been facilitating the strengthening of the Ghana Agroeco
logy Movement as a Civil Society Organizations-led platform that is championing Agroecology issues in Ghana.

The Deputy Executive Director of CIKOD, South, Mr Wilberforce Laate said the main objective of the platform was to build a Movement made up of well-informed multi-stakeholder membership, organized in structure and function, promoting Agroecology practices as well as advocacy activities in Ghana.

Mr Laate reminded stakeholders in Agriculture that the GMOs were false solutions and did not meet the challenges of food security in Ghana.

He advised CSOs, farmers and other stakeholders to come together to promote local seeds for planting and consumption.

Mt. Laate advised farmers to venture into Agroecology and organic farming on a large scale to demonstrate its relevance for policy makers to make informed decisions.

‘The platform also seeks to influence Agricultural policy on food systems that impact positively on Agricultural development and the environment including the well-being among identifiable
food value chain actors in Ghana’.

Mr Laate said over the past few years, CIKOD have collaborated with other partners to strengthen the concept and practices of Agroecology among members of the Ghana Agroecology Movement in the Forest zone through workshops, caravan tours and others.

Parliament passed the Biosafety Act in 2011 and the Plant Variety Protection Bill (Plant Breeders Bill) in 2020.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia says the current ‘collapsed’ state of the economy was better than the economy the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government inherited in 2017.

He said despite the occurrence of the COVID 19 pandemic and the Russia Ukraine War, which globally impacted economies negatively, the flagbearer of the NPP government had been successful at managing the economy.

‘And if you look at what we have done in the last seven years, we are now in our eighth year, It is very clear. If you look at all the routine things that governments do in the area of development, we have done much more and performed much better than his(John Mahama) government,’ he said.

Dr Bawumia made the remarks at the 8th edition of the CEO Summit held in Accra, in response to an address delivered by former president Mahama.

Dr Bawumia explained that the NPP government managed to turn around an economy characterized by high unemployment rate, unstable power supply, declining agricultural growth and low industrial growth.

‘And they had to cancel teacher training allowances. They couldn’t pay. They had to cancel nursing training allowances. They could not pay,’ he said.

Under the current administration, he said the growth rate in agriculture has been twice the rate of the previous government with an average growth rate of 6 per cent.

Moreover, he said 2.1 million jobs had been created in the public sector which was more than what any government in the fourth republic had done.

He also talked about the introduction of the free Senior High School education policy and the construction of more social infrastructure than any government.

These included roads, railway lines, public libraries, airports, 1,500 telephony sites and ambulance vehicles for all constituencies.

‘We are in the process of building 120 court buildings. 80 have been completed…We’ve built more fish landing sites, 11 completed. We’ve done more sanitation facilities, increased the proportion of the population with access to sanitation facilities from 33 per cen
t to 59 per cent.

‘We’ve built more sports facilities in the country than any other government in the fourth republic. When we came in, we had only three astro turfs in Ghana. There are 150 for us in Ghana,’ he said.

Dr Bawumia added that,’ we have built 10 multi-purpose sports stadiums, completed six of them. And the others will be completed soon,’.

Source: Ghana News Agency