Ghana needs to craft a 50-year common agenda for the country’s development, the Christian Council of Ghana has proposed.

“We as a people must now be working towards what we call ‘The Ghana we want the next 50 years agenda’” General Secretary of the Council Rev Dr Kwabena Opuni Frimpong has told Starr FM’s Osei Owusu Amankwaah in an interview.

According to him, “Ghana must have a vision that is bipartisan and nonpartisan…: one which…all the political parties [will] have a stake in.”

The Council says: “By the end of the day, the document of ‘The Ghana we want the next 50 years agenda’ must be something that all political parties, religious people, groups and everybody would want to identify with.”

“We need a common agenda in this country that will push us into 2063. Now how do we want Ghana to look like in education, in health? Not just political manifesto. Not imposing political manifestos on us, but the whole nation must have a common agenda,” Dr Opuni Frimpong said.

In 2012, the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) began processes toward drafting a 30-year national development plan, to set bold, dynamic and far-reaching goals and strategies to take Ghana where it deserves to be.

Chairman of the Commission at the time, Paul Victor Obeng (late) said consultations had began, to mobilise the participation and support of the various stakeholders and the base technical papers were being prepared with support from various experts from various sectors of society.

“To do that the current commission decided to continue with efforts initiated in 2006 to evolve a long-term national policy development framework, spanning 30 years, out of which medium term programmes would be derived to serve as strategic benchmarks to guide annual budgetary preparations,” he told The Business Analyst in 2012.

“The intention for the process of national long-term plan to be fully participatory would involve participation of academia, development think-tanks, political parties, formal and informal business associations, civil society organisations (CSOs), faith-based organizations (FBOs), Youth groups etc.,” Obeng said.

Stressing the importance of youth participation, the NDPC Chairman said it is their proposal that the long-term policy framework would be validated by all stakeholders and entrenched by Parliament as a legally-binding document.

“It is this document therefore that would guide the development of the national long-term plan, which would provide sensitivity for adaption to emerging situations without losing sight of the vision and goals set in the long-term framework.