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Mr Javed Talat, Executive Director of the World Bank yesterday called on the Government to fashion out mechanisms that will help check the ever-growing population to solve development challenges. He said Technology is fast moving towards reductions in job creation such that unchecked population growth can become disastrous to developing countries in terms of high rates of unemployment. Mr Talat made this call when he led a World Bank delegation to visit Vice President John Dramani Mahama at the Castle, Osu. He said the World Bank has a financial facility to support developing countries to check population growth and suggested to developing countries to adopt such measures in order to advance their economies. Mr Talat who is on a visit to Ghana to assess the country�s performance as part of his economic constituency, commended successive governments for stabilising the country, adding �I want to congratulate all of the leaders of Ghana for maintaining peace and tranquility over the years and I must add that Ghana stands out as a country of progress with political stability.� The Executive Director also appealed to developing countries to intensify agricultural production to become self-sufficient and net exporters of food to the developed countries whose food reserves are becoming exhausted. �Luckily, Ghana has a lot of fertile and arable land and therefore needs to take advantage of it to step up your production levels to become the food basket of the West African sub-region.� Vice President Mahama said Ghana has a comparative advantage in agricultural production and Government has therefore prioritised it to become the food basket of the continent. He said Government has embarked on a programme to adopt effective technology, provide micro-credits and improved seeds, as well as technical know-how which is already yielding dividends in the country. Vice President Mahama explained that the new services have moved production levels from two tonnes to six tonnes per hectare since last year, and gave the assurance that it could be increased further within this year. He said currently Government is facing some financial hardships due to the implementation of the single spine salary structure and the payment of some debts that have over the years hanged on government. The Vice President attributed some of the success of Government to the vibrancy of the Ghanaian media and the civil society organisations.