The Executive Director of International Development Economics Associates (IDEAs), a non-governmental organisation, Charles Abugre, has called for a paradigm shift in the management and extraction of the country’s natural resources.
He said Ghana should shift from exporting its natural resources in their raw form and focus on value-addition to attract more revenue for the country.
Speaking at the public lecture in Accra on Wednesday he said the government must address the issue of dependency on foreign nations for its sustenance if it really desired to assert the country’s sovereignty.
The lecture organised by Third World Network-Africa, a non-governmental organisation, to mark its 30th anniversary dubbed ‘Thirty Years of Advocacy’ was chaired by former Secretary General of the Ghana TUC and ITUC-Africa, Mr Kwasi Adu-Amankwah.
Mr Abugre who was a discussant said rather than being reactive, there was still room to become proactive in the way in which the country managed its commodities.
The Executive Director of IDEAs said all was not lost and the country had the opportunity to make a lot from its lithium resources through the development of agreements that inured to the benefit of the country.
He stressed the need for the country to rely on its abundant land resources to enhance food production to assert its sovereignty.
“So if you look at the import bill, we now exceed over a billion dollars in the importation of food to feed ourselves in this country. That is not only a sovereignty and security question, it is really an economic suicide to have land resources, poison them, refuse to invest in feeding ourselves and depend increasingly on the import market,” Mr Abugre, stated.
The Executive Director of IDEAs paid glowing tribute to Third World NetworkAfrica for the role it had played in building advocacy for the past 30 years.
The Coordinator of Third World NetworkAfrica, Dr Yao Graham, said his outfit established in 1994 had firmly established itself as an influential and respected pan-African policy and advocacy organisation, which has made important contributions in the areas of international and investment policy, minerals and development, and finance.
He said the organisation was created to contribute to African agency in choice and expression in the international policy arena.
“Third World NetworkAfrica is working with partners in Ghana, across Africa and the world as well as for policies that challenge the dominant neoliberal order and for equitable and transformative alternatives. We can proudly point to more than 25 years of working with labour organisations, producers’ organizations, artisan and small-scale miners to challenge things that negatively affect them,” Dr Graham stated.
The Executive Director of ABANTU for Development, Dr Rose Mensah Kutin, said Third World NetworkAfrica had had done a lot to contribute to knowledge, conducted a lot of research to shape the development of the country and built advocacy.
She suggested the Third World Network Africa should establish an institute to disseminate the knowledge the organisation had produced for the last 30 years.
Mr Adu-Amankwah entreated the Third World NetworkAfrica to continue to build partnerships to enable it deliver on its mandate.
BY KINGSLEY ASARE
