Workshop on culture and dev’t ends

Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com

By William Yaw Owusu

Wednesday October 6, 2010
A TWO-DAY workshop aimed at making culture an integral part of the country’s development agenda has ended in Koforidua, the Eastern Regional capital with a call on government to support the National Commission on Culture (CNC) to play an effective role in national development.

It was organized by the CNC with sponsorship from the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung for Cultural and Development Planning Officers in both the Eastern and Greater Accra regions.

At the workshop, participants were taken through how to integrate culture into the domains of national development planning processes in order to accelerate poverty reduction and wealth creation, create institutional linkages with the district assemblies for effective cultural administration and evolve mutually beneficial cultural programmes and activities to accelerate poverty reduction.

Opening the workshop, Michael Attipoe, Director of Finance and Administration of the National Commission on Culture said the 1992 Constitution has provisions which ensure that culture is used as a tool for national integration and development saying “Article 39 of the Constitution under the Directive Principles of State Policy captures this succinctly.”

He said with the creation of the Ministry of Chieftaincy and Culture, the commission on culture has reverted to the implementation of policies to ensure there is a linkage between culture and development.

Mr. Attipoe asked cultural officers to work closely with the district assemblies to identify cultural projects for development adding “we should be able to promote textile production, cottage industries, craftworks and other projects that do not call for huge budgets.”

George Obeng, Eastern Regional Direct of CNC said culture could create a lot of wealth and employment for the youth if it is properly harnessed.

He said the assemblies could support the ministry to establish cultural villages in all the regions as a means of helping to solve unemployment in the country and called for the inclusion of cultural projects in district planning processes.

Isaac Owusu-Mensah, Senior Programmes Manager of KAS who stood in for the resident representative underscored the need for a close collaboration between cultural officers and the assemblies to ensure that culture is properly integrated into the development agenda of the districts.

“There is a correlation between culture and development. The processes of development are not solely related to economic and social factors but fundamentally a question of human development ranging from history, values, self-understanding and all the other processes of social interaction.”

He promised KAS’ commitment to support development of the country and help in the fight to reduce poverty.