‘Mobilise home-grown investment for growth’

April 16 Page 31
Story: Joe Okyere. Agona Swedru
The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast, Reverend Professor Emmanuel Addow Obeng, has stressed the need for citizens of the Central Region to mobilise home-grown investment as intervention for growth and poverty reduction in the region.
Rev. Prof. Obeng said although the region was reputed to be the tourism hub of the country, its impact on the local economy was far from satisfactory.
He said the same could be said about the region’s agricultural potential which is yet to reflect on the level of development the region has seen so far.
In a welcoming address at the opening of a regional development forum at Agona Swedru, Rev. Prof. Obeng agreed that the region’s problem lay in the lack or failure of her own people and indigenous institutions to take the lead in fully harnessing the resources nature had endowed them with, to ensure a turnaround for her local economy.
The forum was organised through the collaborative efforts of the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Cape Coast; the Central Regional Development Commission (CEDECOM) and the Regional Coordinating Council. It had the theme “Harnessing the Resources of the Central Region for accelerated development”.
He reminded the people that the radical political interpretation of development, which argues for political action to achieve dramatic changes in the order of things, was no more tenable.
He said a more plausible thinking was that the government should create an enabling environment that would ensure sustainable, equitable and widespread private sector-led growth with an accompanying reduction in poverty levels.
He stated that beyond natural resources, socio-economic development practitioners placed a high premium on education, training and research and these were areas in which the region had a huge comparative advantage.
“As head of one of the two pubic universities in the Central Region...I cannot hide my embarrassment at our inability in the past to influence the socio-economic development of the region beyond what it is now,” he said.
Rev. Prof. Obeng said this awareness had engendered new thinking which had informed some of the new programmes and structures the university had established in the recent past, all of which had direct and indirect influences on growth, wealth creation and poverty reduction.
The Central Regional Minister, Nana Ato Arthur, commended CEDECOM for spearheading the development of the region.
He underscored the need for the human resource development of the region and the role of tertiary institutions in that direction and expressed the hope that the collaboration between the stakeholders would be sustained to enhance the region’s socio-economic development.
The Executive Director of CEDECOM, Mr John Akowuah, said the forum was expected to enhance private sector-led development initiatives; establishment of linkages between farmers and manufacturers, and strategise for the socio-economic development of the region.
He expressed the hope that participants would achieve the objectives of the forum for the development of the region.
The Chief Executive of the Coastal Grooves Limited, Mr Daniel Danquah, suggested the formation of a “ Club 20” to support the development of the region.