Govt Sets Up SDGs Delivery Fund

By Kingsley Asare

The government is to establish Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Delivery Fund (SDGDF) to raise financial resources to implement the SDGs.

Monies raised from the SDGDF will be used to finance the construction of boreholes, reading centres, technology innovation centres and other programmes to achieve the targets of the SDGs.

The Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia who announced this at the fourth Ghana Chief Executive Officers (CEO) Summit in Accra yesterday, did not elaborate, but said; the fund would be a game-changer to meeting SDGs.

The SDGs are a global set of 17 goals which are meant to tackle poverty, hunger, promote education, gender equality by the year 2030.

Ghana adopted the SDGs in 2015 and the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has been appointed the Co-Chair of the UN Secretary-General Eminent Group of Advocates of SDGs.

The two-day programme which is being organised by the Ghana CEO Summit is on the theme "The Futuristic Economy: Technology-Driven Future of Business and Governance for Economic Transformation."

As part of the programme, there was the Ghana CEO Excellence Award where CEOs who have excelled in their fields of endeavour were awarded.

Dr Bawumia who delivered the keynote address said, to demonstrate the government's commitment to implement the SDGs, the President had constituted a group of CEOs to assist to develop programmes and strategies to raise resources to finance the SDGs.

The Vice President implored the CEOs at the programme to assist the government agenda to implement the SDGs, and said he was elated some of the CEOs had incorporated the SDGs in their business development models.

Turning his focus on the programme, Dr Bawumia said it had come at an opportune time considering the events which had happened for the past 15 months and said government was committed to driving technology and digitisation to accelerate the growth of business as well as the development of the country.

Dr Bawumia opined that technology and digitisation were drivers of business growth and businesses needed to leverage technology and digitisation to be able to compete with their international peers.

He called for attitudinal change among the citizenry towards the deployment of technology, saying that some people resist to deployment of new technologies.

For instance, the Vice President said when the government introduced the paperless port, it received resistance from sections of the players in the port industry who wanted the new reforms to fail.

Dr Bawumia said government would not relent in its quest to deploy new technologies to promote the country's economic transformation.

The Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr Ernest Addison who took the Outstanding Public Sector Leader Award, in his remarks lauded the organisation for theme chosen for the programme, saying, technology remained a key driver of financial development in Africa.

He said Bank of Ghana would continue to remain vigilant to all forms of risks and vulnerabilities to the economy and will take appropriate actions to mitigate them to ensure continued macroeconomic financial stability of the country.

The Chief Executive of the Ghana CEO Summit, Ernest De-Graft Egyir in his remarks said the programme was meant to deliberate on lingering issues affecting the development of the private sector and proffer solutions to them.

He said the programme was also to share experience and learn from the CEOs and Captains of Industries who attended the programme also to honour CEOs who were doing well in their field of endeavour.

Mr Egyir said the two-day programme would discuss technological and digital innovations and economic issues to promote the growth of the private sector and called for more incentives to drive the growth of the private sector in Ghana.

Among those honoured were, the CEO of Margins Group, Moses Baiden Jnr, who won the Life Time Business-Achiever award for technology, CEO of Interplast, Hayssam Fakhry won the CEO of the year, Manufacturing of Rubber Plastics.

The others are CEO of Reroy Cables, Kate Quartey-Papafio, CEO of the Year Electrical and Electronics, Kwesi Agyeman Busia, CEO of DVLA, CEO of the Year Public Sector, Frank Adu Jnr, CEO of Cal Bank took the CEO of the Year, Banking Sector and Dr Daniel McKorley, Executive Chairman of McDan Group won the CEO of the Year, Shipping.

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