01.16.09 | Accra Ghana: African Roundtable on the Changing Aid Landscape
OVF Ghana’s Jacob Odame represented OVF at a one day round-table conference at the La Palm Royal Beach, Accra, Ghana on Monday January 26, 2009. This was a programme organized by the World Bank in collaboration with the Institute for Statistics Social and Economic Research (ISSER) of the University of Ghana.
The purpose of the conference was to get input from key stakeholders from the private for-profit sector, civil societies, and non governmental organizations that have experience on key issues with regard to changes in the aid and development landscape in Ghana.
An introduction to the project was done by Elizabeth White of the World Bank, who is the Project Manager for the program.
The actual presentation of the Ghana Case Study was done by Professor Ernest Aryeetey, director of ISSER and was followed by comments by Ernest Addison and Yvonne Quansah of the Bank of Ghana and Ministry of Finance respectively.
Professor Aryeetey said that from their research they estimated an amount of $215.8 million of private aid annually since 2004 in Ghana. This does not include the amount that individuals provide through international and domestic remittances. With official development (ODA) averaging $2688 million over the same period, private remittances was abut 8% of the former.
Professor Aryeetey noted that one key issue which was problematic and could cause greater and significant change to aid figure estimations was funds received by NGOs. Ghana does not have a body that regulates the activities of NGOs.
Several in the audience also brought up the fact that a body was proposed and discussed in parliament to regulate the activities of NGO to be able to get very useful data especially with regard to inflows, however to date there has not been an enactment of that body. Also a point was made by a participant that NGOs are very accountable and keep very good records and provide reports to their funders since without that they will not get further support for their activities.
Dr. Regina Adutwum of the National Development Planning Commission in her presentation on the topic “The GPRS and the Long Term Development Plan for Ghana: A role of for the Private Sector and NGOs” talked about the immense contribution of NGOs and the corporate sector through their Corporate Social responsibility in steering the development agenda of the nation. She however raised concerns about some NGOs undertaking projects that are not in line with the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy. The corporate sector also in their social responsibility role channel activities towards areas that will just keep their profit agenda up which is not always helpful and often deviates from the GPRS.
Contributions by participants centered on how the corporate private sector can team up with NGOs in steering their social responsibility functions. The NGOs were seen to be closer to the communities and can help achieve development if funded by the corporate private sector to undertake projects with accountability and monitoring mechanism in place.
The final presentation for the day was made by Robert Hinson of the University of Ghana Business School on the topic: “Advancing Social Responsibility in Ghana: Some Options”. He highlighted new trends and options available to the corporate private sector and also suggested ways that they can team up with NGOs in carrying out the social responsibility agenda.
Prof. Ernest Aryeetey and Elizabeth White provided a wrap-up to the discussions and informed participants that all their contributions have been noted and will be factored into the final research outcome which will be disseminated to all stakeholders by Friday, January 30, 2009.
