[ 2012-05-12 ]

African governments urged to focus on suitable development projects
Cape Coast, May 12, GNA - Mr David Malone,
President of the International Development Centre,
based in Canada has urged African countries to
focus on development projects suitable for their
environment instead of relying on donor countries
to impose projects on them.

He said most development projects in developing
countries did not achieve the required results
because majority of such projects were formulated
and designed by donor countries and imposed on
African nations without taking into consideration
the specific needs and aspirations of the
beneficiary countries.

Mr Malone said this in a lecture on “How Might We
Think of development “ at the University of Cape
Coast (UCC) on Friday, as part of the University's
occasional lecture series held in Cape Coast.

The lecture, which was attended by heads of
departments of the university, lecturers and some
students, was to deliberate on how people
understand development.

He said the time had come for developing countries
to set their national priorities right and adopt
projects that would fit into their development
agenda, stressing that, it was important for
African governments to take a critical look at
their governance system and economy policies.

He said it was important for Africans countries to
also consider the implementation of internal funds
mobilization through encouraging people to pay the
appropriates taxes, this he noted, would help them
plan development projects that would meet their
demands as well as put the government on its toes
since people would like to derive maximum benefits
from the taxes they pay.

Mr Malone called on Universities in Ghana to also
help the government to redirect its programmes and
come out with policies that would help in the
development of the country.

He also expressed concern about the effects of
conflicts on development, adding that, no nation
could develop effectively with conflicts and that
no investor would like to invest in a conflict
prone country.

Mr Malone said developing countries should put the
appropriate governance system in place to enable
them to harness their development programmes,
stressing that, without the appropriate governance
systems and institutions, there would be no
meaningful development.

Mr Malone announced that the International
Development Centre has given an amount of two
million dollars to the Institute of Economic
Affairs (IEA) and Statistical and Economic
Research Centre to improve the human capacity,
saying that, it was important for countries to
develop their human resource capital.

He said the centre took into consideration the
think tank role these institutions were playing in
Ghana's policy processing, and that, out of the 23
countries that applied for assistance, the two
Ghanaian think tanks received the highest amount,
out of the 115 million dollars set aside.

The Canadian High commissioner to Ghana said
Canada, for the past 50 years, had been in
partnership with Ghana through CIDA and had given
support in the areas of agriculture, potable water
and sanitation, in the three northern regions.

Source - GNA

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