Brong Ahafo Dialogues with ActionAid Ghana

The first Brong Ahafo Regional Policy Dialogue by ActionAid Ghana has given new energy to the fight against poverty and redefined the focus of development actors in the region–to chart a new direction for strategic development. The dialogue brought together regional and district administrators, traditional authorities and other development collaborators, to collectively identify policy priorities of the region and initiate a sustainable dialogue towards effective implementation.

Under the theme “Linking innovations in practice to policy for accelerated development," the dialogue alerted participants to disturbing statistics about domestic violence in the Brong Ahafo region, where a total of 5974 cases were recorded by DoVVSU, between 2009 and 2014. While reported cases of rape in the region was 0.6% (37 cases), non-maintenance cases had increased to 4359, representing 72%. Similarly, DoVVSU statistics on assault cases in the period stood at 559 (9.6%).

As a human rights violation which affects the dignity of victims, domestic violence leads to high divorce rates, which results in single parenthood, eventually leading to high child delinquency. The social vices that afflict our youth and assail our world are the result of child delinquency. These impact negatively on development and derail our efforts to build a world free of poverty and injustice, where people enjoy their right to dignity.

Teacher deployment, access to education and teacher to pupil ratios in the region are not encouraging. While the Pupil/Teacher ratio is high at KG and SHS levels (KG 1:33 in 2012, and 1: 29 in 2013; SHS 1:28 in 2012 and 1: 27 in 2013), it is low at the primary level, which recorded ratios of 1:33 in 2012 and 1:31 in 2013. At the JHS level, the ratio was 1:16 in 2012 and 1: 15 in 2013. The percentage of trained teachers at all levels of the school system is also very low. Even though there are excess trained teachers in some areas, some schools in rural communities are totally deprived of any trained personnel. These factors affect the quality of learning and performance.

ActionAid Ghana has initiated lots of interventions in the region, to support many communities in the Asutifi (North and South), Banda, Atebubu and Tain districts, to demand their rights to basic services and work towards poverty eradication. We have empowered and improved the capacity of communities, especially women groups, to venture into economic activities for their sustainable livelihood.

In education, we are supporting the Ghana Education Service to implement the Complementary Basic Education project, where some 120,000 out-of-school children in the country would be integrated into the main school system in the next academic year. We are organising functional literacy lessons to prepare these children for formal education. Through our Girls camps and Girls clubs, we are helping to develop the potentials of girls in the region for future leadership roles. These and other women empowerment programmes are the inspiration behind our women rights campaigns, calling for women representation in decision making at district and regional levels.

As the Brong Ahafo region takes a new competitive approach to development, it is the expectation of ActionAid Ghana that the development actors in the region would institutionalize and sustain the policy dialogue, where crucial development issues would be continually addressed, to accelerate the development of the region.

ActionAid Ghana is committed to a world without poverty and injustice where every person enjoys their right to life with dignity. We believe that development is possible only when the rights of the poor and excluded minorities are respected, promoted and protected.