Vice President John Dramani Mahama on Tuesday stated that the government could only achieve most of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) through effective collaboration with the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) operating in the rural areas.

He explained that most of the NGOs were effectively engaged in the provision of water, sanitation facilities, schools and other development projects, and therefore ignoring them could derail government’s development agenda.

Vice President Mahama stated this when he joined the Management and Staff of Plan Ghana, an International NGO to celebrate its 75th Anniversary in Accra.

Plan Ghana, which started its operation in Ghana, 30 years, is sponsoring 29,000 children in Greater Accra, Central, Northern, Upper West, Brong Ahafo, Volta and Western Regions.

The sponsorship package covers childhood immunisation, child nutrition and girls’ football clubs in all the selected districts they operate in.

Vice President Mahama, who had worked for Plan Ghana some years ago, said government’s partnership with the NGO, could yield meaningful dividends as the two bodies were engaged in the provision of dams for dry-season farming, sanitation facilities, poverty alleviation and gender parity.

He said government had advanced tremendously in other MDGs except the water and sanitation goals and called on Plan Ghana to partner government to achieve the objectives before the 2015 deadline.

He added: “Plan Ghana has been instrumental in the health, livelihood, and micro-credit scheme sectors and I believe government’s partnership with them can help alleviate poverty, improve on sanitation and create more opportunities.”

Mr Asum-Kwarteng Ahensah, Programme Support Manager of Plan Ghana, who gave an overview of the operations of the NGO said apart from sponsoring children in schools, the organisation also constructed some dams in the Sissala East and Sissala West districts of the Upper West Region for dry-season gardening.

He said the NGO had also started a community radio station that is educating the youth on their rights and responsibilities in society as well as establishing ICT centres for selected communities in their operational areas.

Mr Prem Shukla, Country Director for the NGO pledged that the organisation would extend their interventions to the Western, Ashanti and Eastern regions as part of their policy to cover the country in the succeeding years.**