The Public-Private Partnership Forum (PPPF) which was established as an innovative machinery to strengthen Public-Private Partnership for tourism development in Ghana has held its last meeting to round off the project.

Dubbed “the tourism development project through strengthening the public-private partnership in Ghana”, the project which is collaboration with the Ministry of Tourism and Diasporan Relations (MOTDR) and the Ghana Tourism Federation (GHTOF), was sponsored by the Japanese International Corporation Agency (JICA).

The PPPF has become an arena for both public and private sectors to address, discuss and find solutions to issues in the industry.

So far, the forum has successfully hosted 11 forums from the inception of the project in to date, where roundtable conferences and joint committee meetings were held to deal with outstanding issues that could not be critically addressed at the PPPF.

The project began in February 2006 until January 2009 with the objective of forming a favourable public-private partnership in the tourism sector in Ghana.

The MOTDR and the JICA Project Team (JPT) established the Forum in order to strengthen Pubic-Private Partnership (PPP) for the tourism development through strategic discussions and implementation of pilot activities and also develop capacities of PPPF members from both the public and private sectors.

Bridget Katrisku, Chief Director of the MOTDR, whole closed the last meeting, commended JICA, Speed Ghana, SNV and all the stakeholders who have helped in diverse ways for the sustainability of the project.

She said under the project, five working groups were launched and six pilot activities were identified, where each working group was under the guidance of a trainer, chairperson and co-chairperson, where they each developed an action plan with a proposed schedule, budget and results for the second phase.

She described the works of the working groups as successful and hoped that it would go a long way to move the tourism industry forward, saying that tourism impacts on every sector of the economy and as such needed to be given all the necessary attention to propel the nation forward.

The groups were Finance and Investment, whose pilot activity was to develop the Tourism Development Fund (TDF); Human Resource Development which was responsible for creating hospitality training standards for improving quality; Marketing and Promotion, also charged to look at branding-develop framework for visitor centres.

The rest are Policy, which worked on the implementation of the TDF; and Product Development also responsible for benchmarking good practices model in Africa.

Mrs. Katsriku indicated that the PPPF Secretariat and JPT organised, implemented and supported various training programmes under the framework of the PPPF to develop and improve capacities of the PPPF members, and strengthen organizations such as GHATOF.

“The PPPF Secretariat produced annual reports in July 2007 and June 2008, and December 2008 with assistance from JPT, which summarized the project activities such as the PPPF conferences, pilot activities, trade association workshops, and website development. The MOTDR and JPT also prepared a few newsletters to report project activities. The newsletters were uploaded on the website”, she noted.

The Chief Director stated that the PPPF Secretariat organised a website review committee, which worked closely with JPT to develop an improved national tourism website, including links to a PPPF’s website which introduces activities of the PPPF and the working groups.

She hinted that the website counted around 6,000 visitors each month, saying that a website management committee was also set up where it holds meeting to discuss how to efficiently manage the website and develop the practical site.

“The website is being continuously updated and developed to be able to introduce useful information for tourists and PPP F activities and reports. The committee is also exploring an appropriate structure for sustainable management and regular and on-going maintenance of the website by a designated individual”, she emphasised.

Mrs. Katsriku mentioned that through the forum key issues such as weak collaboration between the PPP and weak private sector were being addressed through joint projects, capacity building, management structure and membership:

“Through PPPF there have been some achievements. These have already been presented. However, the main Goal of developing tourism through the strengthening of PPP is a long term goal, which calls for continuous collaboration. Therefore, the PPPF must be sustained”, she maintained.

The vision of the PPPF was to build a seamless partnership between the public and private sector, with the mission strengthening public-private partnership for the development of tourism in Ghana

The core functions for the PPPF were to ensure that all identified projects were implemented; ensure the strengthening of the various sectors of the association; as well as initiate and sustain relationship with development partners act as a advocacy pressure group for the development for the industry

It also sought to strengthen coordination among members of PPPF by establishing a developed and full function GHATOF secretariat, strengthen the rapport and team work between leadership of the forum Under the project, proposals were also made to address the following challenges, lack of commitment, weak Private sector, poor leadership and governance of Trade Associations, and inadequate funding.