Participants of the Northern Development Forum (NDF) have advocated the establishment of a peace and security centre at the University for Development Studies (UDS).

They maintained that establishing such a centre would help carry out public education on peacebuilding to halt the intermittent violent conflicts in the north.

The participants also argued that the establishment of the peace centre would assist reduce poverty if not eliminating it completely as it would create a peaceful environment for businesses to flourish.

The participants mentioned the need for political parties to come with pragmatic plans to promote vocational skills training in the northern regions.

Northern Development Forum is a non-partisan organisation that brings together people from the five regions from northern Ghana to promote peace and development of the entire north.

The forum, on the theme “Keeping the Northern Ghana Transformation Agenda in the Manifestos of the Political Parties for 2020 Election in Ghana” was meant to collate views from the people on the pressing needs of the area.

The participants bemoaned that politicians over the years had taken the people for granted and that they would only be voting for the party that has concrete measures to address the challenges of northern Ghana.

They also urged political parties to put in their manifestos measures to effectively and efficiently address bad road network.

The participants were of the view that fixing poor road network would go a long way to improve the economic fortunes of the area.

They pointed out that improving the road network would motivate professionals such as doctors, nurses and teachers to come to the area.

In this regard the participants called for measures to market the many tourists in the area for more patronage.

A member of the Council of State, Professor Yakubu Natogmah, who chaired the function, said it was important for the people of northern Ghana to champion the development of the area, and urged the forum to give politicians timeline to deliver.

He spoke on the need for priorities in education in the north and to unearth the vast potentials in the area for accelerated development of the north, and urged the forum to hold their political leaders accountable.

Alhaji Abdul-Rahaman Osman, Executive Director of GDCA, hinted that NDF would come out with a comprehensive document of the needs to be put before the various political parties.

He indicated that NDF’s main focus was to champion the development of Northern Ghana.

The NDF is being supported by Star Ghana as part of efforts to reduce the development gap between the South and northern Ghana.