By William Yaw Owusu
Wednesday, 17 October 2007
THE 11th annual Africa Forum which provides a platform for decision makers to exchange experiences on policy and programmes in agriculture and rural development, has commenced in Accra.
The five-day event, which is under the theme "Drivers for pro-poor rural growth," is being attended by about 120 participants from almost all the countries in Africa, as well as some European experts.
It is being organised by the German Technical Co-operation (GTZ), in collaboration with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, under the Market-Oriented Agriculture Programme, which is an initiative of the Ghana-German Development Co-operation.
Participants are expected to identify the main drivers of change in rural growth as well as look out for factors that hinder efforts for growth and see how best such drivers for change could be supported to do more.
Opening the forum on Monday, Mrs Gladys Asmah, Minister of Fisheries, said agriculture has played a significant role in the performance of the economy and a review of the policies of the sector will add more strength to the country’s economic growth.
She said once the policies have been reviewed, the private sector should be positioned such that, they will be able to take up the challenges in the agricultural sector.
Mrs Asmah said, "agricultural development depends on markets. We need to develop our regional markets to enable us to get access to the global market."
She said Ghana is among the first group of countries that prepared to implement a framework which has been aligned with the agricultural policy of ECOWAS and also added that the government had committed itself to increase budgetary allocations to agriculture to 10 per cent in line with New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) provisions.
The Minister further said "with all these interventions, we have to work towards ensuring that farmers, particularly those in the small-scale sector take advantage to create wealth to raise their standards of living."
Dr Lothar Dlehl, Programme Advisor of GTZ, said "rural development is about people making money, becoming economically independent, informed and articulate players in the economy."
He said the forum will hope to lay the foundation for a more sector specific analysis of the drivers for change in pro-poor rural growth.
This is the second time the forum is being held in Ghana. In 2001, a similar event was held in Accra under the theme: "Sector wide approach – Do they really help the poor?"
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