April 4, 2014 Bolgatanga, Upper East


The Country Director of ActionAid Ghana paid a working visit to the Upper East regional programme of the organization, to appraise and evaluate the progress of development our interventions in the region. The Country Director, Sumaila Abdul-Rahman, also visited and interacted with the political leadership of the region, to share ideas on development programmes and explore areas of strategic collaboration in the preparation and execution of medium term development strategies of the various assemblies.
DCE/MCE Forum
As part of the working visit, the Country Director interacted with District and Municipal Chief Executives at a special forum, where district level development issues were discussed. The purpose was to identify specific development challenges in the districts, and together forge a critical plan for effective collaboration towards progress. Issues discussed included:
• Poor BECE Education results in all the districts in the region
• Teacher deployment: lack of trained teachers and teacher absenteeism
• Large class sizes (sometimes 80 pupils to one teacher)
• Low women representation in political leadership and assembly representation
• High illiteracy among women and difficulties in getting women into leadership
• Role of NGO’s in women representation being exploited to the disadvantage of women; men taking advantage of many women candidates in an electoral area
• Disaster management preparedness plans
• Inadequate extension service delivery
• Food security and post-harvest losses due to storage problems
Meeting with Regional House of Chiefs
There were also interactions with the Regional House of Chiefs, where the effects of outmoded cultural practices such as Female Genital Mutilation, widowhood rites, wife inheritance and forced marriages were discussed.
Regional Policy Dialogue
A well-attended regional policy dialogue brought together the deputy regional minister of the Upper East Region, development partners and collaborators, and the media, to further explore areas of strategic partnership for regional development. The dialogue centred on the critical issues of low quality of BECE education in the region, teacher-student ratios and the need to increase the involvement of women in leadership.
ActionAid Ghana is an affiliate of ActionAid International, a federation of more than 40 countries working together to end poverty and injustice around the world. In Ghana, ActionAid started in the Upper East Region, where the organisation works in more communities than in other regional programmes. The organization works in six regions under the broad themes of education, women rights and food security, building the development capacities of communities with practical interventions for poverty eradication. ActionAid Ghana believes in a world without poverty and injustice where people have a right to a life of dignity.

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Issued by Kwesi Tawiah-Benjamin, Public Relations and Communications Coordinator
Email: Benjamin.Tawiah@actionaid.org, 0507712476
First Media Contact: James Kusi-Boama, Upper West Regional Local Rights Programme
ActionAid Ghana, Email: James.Boama@actionaid.org, Tel: 0244935205
Second Media Contact: Sumaila Abdul-Rahman, Country Director, ActionAid Ghana
Sumaila.Rahman@actionaid.org, 0204668616