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Dr Kojo Mensah Abrampah, Director General of the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) has said the Commission cannot compel political parties to align their manifestos with the long and medium term development perspectives of the country.

However, he said it would be in the interest of the political parties themselves to align their manifestos with the development perspectives of the Country only if they desired to achieve maximum impact.

“It is not for the NDPC to push for Parties to align but it is logical and rational for Parties to rather align to some of the longterm development perspectives of the Country”.

“Sincerely, if you want to get results, then the key thing is to develop manifestoes around the longterm development plan such as the Ghana at 100 perspective”, he said.

Dr Abrampah said this in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) on the sidelines of the opening of the Ghana Priority Youth Forum at the University of Cape Coast on Thursday.

The forum, which was on the theme: “The relevance of using data for policy making” sought to solicit the views and expectations of the youth on the Country’s development going forward.
The Ghana Priority is a collaboration between Copennhagan Consensus Centre (CCC) and the National Development Planning Commission.

The CCC is a Global Think-Tank focused on using data for effective policy solutions using cost benefit analysis, the project seeks to provide government and the international donor community with systematic processes to help prioritise the most effective policy solutions and help Ghana accelerate the achievement of the National Development agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs).

Dr Abrampah explained that once political parties are able to design a manifesto, which aligned with the longterm perspective of the Country, there was high probability that whatever that would be pursued under the manifesto would be close to reality.

He added that it was up to political parties to develop strategies to be able to implement what was outlined in their manifestos.

The manifesto is an intention and the intention must be probed by relevance, by feasibility and probed within a time frame, he said.

Dr Abrampah expressed content about the development trend of the country but stressed that though Ghana’s development was on course, there was the need to set the right priorities.

Dr Ralph Nordjo, Coordinator of Ghana Priorities, CCC explained that the Ghana Priority research project sought to explore the smallest solutions to help Ghana and it covered themes ranging from poverty and health to education, infrastructure and gender equality.

He said the project was started some 18 months ago by selecting more than 400 development intervention policies that were in line with the National Development Agenda and the SDGs.

He said 80 of such policies were selected by reference to a group of eminent people based on top priorities.