President Akufo-Addo has launched Ghana’s Strategic Roadmap for harnessing demographic dividends – the local component of the African Union’s Demographic Dividend Roadmap.
Under the roadmap, government has committed itself to four pillars: economy, education, health and good governance.
Economy
Speaking at the launch in Accra on Monday, President Akufo-Addo indicated that his government over the last 11 months, had worked to ensure the stability of Ghana’s macro-economy, without which private sector growth would be inhibited.
“We have reduced inflation and interest rates, and have largely stabilised the cedi. We have reduced significantly the fiscal deficit, by rationalising public sector expenditure, and, at the same time, improving government revenue. Government, within this period, has controlled domestic borrowing, so as not to crowd out the private sector from the financial markets. Our external debt commitments have been brought to more sustainable limits,” he said.
With government strengthening the private sector by shifting the focus of the economic policy from taxation to incentivising production, the president indicated that a number of measures had been taken to lead Ghana and her economy into the new digital age.
These include the introduction of an e-business registration system, a paperless port clearance system, a digital addressing system, a mobile interoperability system and the national identification system – all of which are designed to formalise the Ghanaian economy, reduce the cost of doing business and facilitate interaction between businesses and their clients, particularly in a technology-driven era.
Education
“We recognize also that the most effective way to ensuring prosperity in Ghana, and on the African continent, is through value addition activities, in a transformed and diversified, modern economy. An educated workforce will facilitate its achievement. The countries that have done well, even without natural resources, are the countries that have invested in education and skills training. It is not gold, cocoa, diamonds, timber or oil that is going to build our nation. If it was, it would have done so already. It is empowered Ghanaians, especially the empowered youth of today, who are going to build Ghana,” the president articulated.
Health
President Akufo-Addo noted, “As co-chair of the Group of Advocates of Eminent Persons of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, ensuring healthy lives and promoting wellbeing for all is the objective of SDG No. 3.”
The judicious, honest application of the nation’s resources, he said, is heralding the reinvigoration of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).
Additionally, the president assured of the intensification of reproductive health and educational campaigns, encouraging physical exercise and proper nutritional and dietary practices, and healthy lifestyles, training of more nurses and doctors in geriatric health care, intensifying public education for increased antenatal and postnatal care, and strengthening the integration of family planning and nutrition education into antenatal and postnatal care to address reproductive health and nutritional concerns in Ghana.
Governance
On governance, President Akufo-Addo assured of the promotion and deepening, in Ghana, of a system and culture of accountable governance, free of corruption, whereby the people are governed in accordance with the rule of law, respect for individual liberties and human rights, the principles of democratic accountability and social justice.
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