Recent announcements that Ghana?s total debt of $6bn was being wiped off may be a victory without a white handkerchief, as the country requires foreign aid of about one billion dollars a year, for the next ten years, in order to achieve its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

According to the UN Development project, Ghana requires, in foreign aid, $49.1 per person per year to realise its MDG. These numbers sum up to one billion dollars a year for the next ten consecutive years.

The MDGs form part of the resolutions of world leaders to change the living conditions of the world?s poorest people by 2015. A framework of 8 goals, 18 targets and 48 indicators to measure progress towards the MDGs was adopted by a consensus of experts from the United Nations Secretariat and the IMF, OECD and the World Bank. As part of the goals, UN member nations sort to eradicate extreme universal primary education, promote gender equity and empower women. They also declared to reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, ensure environmental sustainability and develop a global partnership for development.

Whereas Ghana requires $49.1 per person per year, Tanzania and Uganda require $60.2 and $46.7 respectively. For Ghana, the break down of required annual investment per person revealed that $3.3 are needed towards hunger, $11.8 towards education, $1.5 for gender equality, $17.8 for health, $2.4 for water supply $5.7 for energy and $6.6 are for sanitation. These investments will no doubt come in the form of loans and grants with their attendant conditional ties.