Accra, March 7, GNA - President John Agyekum Kufuor on Tuesday granted audience to the former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Madam Mary Robinson, at the Castle, Osu.

She is in the country to deliver the Aggrey-Fraser-Guggisberg Memorial Lectures at the University of Ghana, Legon.

Madam Robinson said she was engaged in trying to bring human rights into issues of globalisation and she had already met with some civil society groups in the country.

It has also become important to establish a link between migration and development, she said, adding that there should be a reshape of the debate on migration.

The former UN High Commissioner observed that New York alone was home to about 600 Ghanaian doctors and there was, therefore, the need to build a system that would be mutually rewarding to both the United States and Ghana.

President Kufuor said human rights should be central to development, noting that development could be achieved but without infusing morality into the political direction it would not have a human face.

He said it was for this reason that African Leaders were now more determined to turn a new page over the Continent's past political situation which had not been all that good.

President Kufuor said the issue of migration was a challenging one and he was happy that the international community was taking a closer look at it.

He said poor countries had been using their scarce resources to train professionals who ended up working for the rich nations. Since it would be an infringement on human rights to try to stop anybody from travelling, he said; "we could only appeal to their conscience. It takes strong moral fibre for them to stay looking at the remuneration paid by the rich nations".

President Kufuor expressed the hope that through good governance practices, the country's trained professionals would be inspired to stay at home and help with the national development effort.