B&FT sets agenda for rural economic development

By Seth KRAMPAH, Kumasi

The Business & Financial Times and a coalition of media partners across the country at an advocacy workshop in Accra have adopted a policy to establish a Development Organ for the media. This is to establish a basis for an advocacy action aimed at developing a Home-Grown Mass-Scale planning model for a Sustainable Solution to Rural Economic Development in the country to be implemented by the media under the development organ.

The initiative dubbed: Media Corporate Response Initiative (M-CRI) would serve as the development vehicle for the media to host home-grown development models for implementation as the Media corporate response initiative. The project is under the auspices of DANIDA-EU sponsored Business Sector Advocacy Challenge Fund

The project under the leadership of B & FT is being facilitated by the Azongo Development Planning Consult, a development planning consulting firm, to harness the Agenda-Setting- Role potential of the media in combating poverty and making the media the centre of development in Ghana.

According to the media participants at the workshop, development is a shared responsibility between central government, local governments, NGOs and the people who are the ultimate beneficiaries of development, all of whom must be closely linked together. The media importance in development must extend beyond reporting to have a development wing as a shareholder to mobilize the media to complement government, NGOs and other stakeholders’ role in development interventionism as a collective enterprise.

The participants indicated that it is about time the coalition partners go beyond adhoc one-off media coalitions for common events to establishing an official development unit with the requisite structures to implement sustainable home-grown development interventions in the country.

According to the Executive Director of B&FT, Mrs. Edith Dankwa, in the mist of mounting and scathing poverty in Ghana and the larger African context, the Media cannot remain one-sided, playing only a watchdog role, when its permanent existence and powerful Information, Education and Communication dissemination potential could be harnessed to initiate and implement sustainable development programmes.

She has thus called upon the rest of the media houses to embrace this initiative to enable the media register a meaningful impact in the country’s development landscape.

The media partners for the advocacy initiative being sponsored by BUSAC Fund have hailed this important discovery as a worthy media venture and its success would position the country as a pioneer in this unique development model in Africa.

In an interview with Nyaaba-Aweeba Azongo, a Development planner and President of Azongo Development Planning Consult, consultants to the B&FT-BUSAC – MEDIA Coalition project said, the media is better positioned than most of the current existing development actors to harness their agenda-setting role to sustainably address the country’s development challenges.

According to Mr.Azongo, if nothing at all is achieved in terms of development delivery, the implementation of these initiatives would generate development consciousness among the populace which is a fundamental value infrastructure for development.

He assured the media that his outfit will assemble the best of Ghanaian planners to ensure that nothing but Home-Based Mass-Scale globally competitive development designs are offered to determine the basis for implementation under the Media-Corporate Response Initiative.