A two-day development forum has been organized in Bolgatanga to give multi-stakeholders the opportunity to appreciate northern Ghana’s development in light of the President’s vision of “Ghana Beyond Aid”.

The conference was convened at the instance of STAR-Ghana, a multi-donor funded voice and accountability programme that supports collective civil society engagement, in collaboration with the Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC), TAMA Foundation and the Northern Development Authority (NDA).

The forum brought together stakeholders in academia, civil society organizations, municipal and district chief executives, traditional and religious leaders across the Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions, including all three regional ministers and the media.

Hajia Zenabu Lariba Abudu, Deputy Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the NDA, who addressed the forum on behalf of Alhaji Dr Abdel-Majeed Haroun, the CEO, said the Ghana Beyond Aid (GBA) mantra is a call for new paradigm of development.

She said the call was meant to propel the nation into a frame of mind that would accelerate the pace of development.

“As relevant as this statement is for Ghana, it is more so for northern Ghana if we consider the fact that the zone has little or nothing to show but decimal development statistics despite decades of governmental development programmes and donor support initiatives. Ironically, northern Ghana is endowed with abundant natural resources and human resource potentials.”

Hajia Abudu said the situation of poverty and inequality in northern Ghana was so pervasive and easy to notice.

The Deputy CEO said all dimensions of poverty in the NDZ including poverty head count, poverty depth and poverty inequality lagged behind national averages and Ghana as a country has been lauded for its great efforts at poverty reduction.

“The Ghana Living Standards Survey Six (GLSS6) report shows a reduction in the poverty incidence from 31.9 per cent in 2005/6 to 24.2 per cent for 2012/13 and that of extreme poverty from 16.5 per cent in 2005/6 to 8.4 per cent for 2012/13.”

Hajia Abudu said while these national poverty statistics were showed a positive trend, that could not be said for the Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions, adding that these regions continue to report high incidences of poverty.

Dr Hakeem Wemah, Board Chairman of the NDA and Chairman of the High-Level Conference on GBA, said without the support of the myriad of Non-Governmental Organizations including development assistance from churches and Islamic organizations, fewer children may have made it to higher levels of education or even survived.

He said “northern Ghana has much to be thankful to development partners” adding that without them, the poverty levels and levels of desperation may have been even worse.

This, notwithstanding, poverty remains widespread and even endemic, Dr Weman said.