AAG Holds Regional Policy Dialogue in Upper East Region

Bolgatanga, April 9, GNA - Action Aid Ghana (AAG) has organized a Regional Policy Dialogue forum in the Upper East Region to help stakeholders particularly the Regional Coordinating Council (RCC) address social problems confronting the region.Some of the key problems identified by stakeholders in the region included the perennial poor performances of Basic Education Certificate (BECE ) in all the districts in the region.Some of the problems identified were disaster management preparedness plans, inadequate extension service delivery, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and Food Security and post-harvest losses due to erratic rainfall patterns, and storage problems in the region.Other factors the forum touched on were Teacher deployment, the lack of trained teachers, teacher absenteeism and large class sizes (sometimes 80 pupils to one teacher) which affected academic performance of pupils in the BECE.In addition, the stakeholders bemoaned the low representation of women in political leaderships in the region particularly at the District Assembly level and mentioned high illiteracy among women as some of the difficulties confronting many women in getting into leadership.Mr Sani Yakubu, Head of Policy and Programme at AAG expressed concern that, since independence, women in the region had been marginalized in leadership positions and called on the RCC and Municipal and District Assemblies (MDAs) to find pragmatic measures to help address the issue.Mr Yakubu who further expressed worry about the poor performance in the BECE said AAG as a Civil Society Organization was concerned about issues confronting women and children and so would be submitting a concept note to assist the RCC to help address the problems.The Deputy Upper East Regional Minister, Mr Daniel Syme lauded AAG and its partners for complimenting government efforts at tackling the myriad of problems confronting the region and indicated that inputs gathered at the policy dialogue meeting and the concept note would be factored into MDAs Medium Term Development Programmes for implementation.Mr Syme said the RCC would develop staff audit for teachers to identify areas overcrowded to enable bodies in charge redeploy them to deprived areas to help arrest the fallen standards of education.The Deputy Regional Minister said the RCC and the MDAs would help address the problem of marginalization of women in leadership positions in the region and called for positive change in attitude towards work in the region.Mr Syme was not happy about the lukewarm attitude of the people towards work as well as lateness to public events and said it was a major problem affecting the region because it slowed down productivity, adding that the RCC was putting up measures to deal with the cankerHe indicated that the RCC had advanced plans to create NGOs Consortium that would come together to help the RCC accelerate development in the Region, and urged the NGOs to help build decentralised substructures of the Assemblies.Professor David Millar, former Pro-Vice Chancellor of the University for Development Studies (UDS) proposed that more women should be given the opportunity to serve as Queen mothers in the traditional areas to help bridge the gender leadership gap in the region.He further proposed to the RCC and MDAs to sponsor and bond student teachers so that when they complete they would post them to deprived communities as is done for students at the UDS Medical School which is perfectly working.The occasion was also used to exhibit activities of AAG since it started its operations in the region.GNA Read Full Story