The Director of Programmes and Policy Engagement at the Centre for Democratic Development-Ghana (CDD-Ghana), Dr. Kojo Pumpuni Asante has called for the creation of more platforms akin to the Ghana Compact Citizen’s Convention to motivate Ghanaians to articulate their concerns to the leadership of this country.
This, he explained would allow Ghanaians to vividly elaborate on their daily struggles to political leaders for better policy formulation rather than citizens waiting to react to policy ideas that politicians announce to the citizenry.
Dr. Asante was speaking on the sidelines of the 2-day Ghana Compact Citizen’s Convention convened by Dr. K. Y. Amoako, founder and president of the African Center for Economic Transformation (ACET).
“We should create more platforms and occasions for conversations like this. I feel now we are too reactive so we are just waiting for political parties or candidates to say one thing or the other and people react based on that… but people know the problems they have and if they can have trusted platforms, whether online or offline to create more forums for people to also say that these are the things we want politicians to focus on. If we can do more of that, going into this election, it may even change the way the parties are addressing these problems or the way they communicate to us.”
Dr. Asante further expressed satisfaction with the level of participation and contribution of rich ideas by the youth who took part in the Citizen’s Convention.
He believed that the outcome from the convention is an indication that the call to action can be strengthened in the country through such platforms.
“During the plenary session, there was this sense that the youth were not getting the opportunity to contribute. They really want to contribute, they understand that there are many challenges but they feel frustrated that they can provide some ideas but they are not seeing opportunities to contribute so I’m really glad to see that people are taking up responsibility and they contributed really good ideas. So on that basis, it gives you an indication that if we really do provide the platforms, we can move from this kind of loss of hope and feeling of hopelessness to one of optimism and a call to action.”
This year’s Ghana Compact Citizen’s Convention, held at the Cedi Conference Centre at the University of Ghana saw over 500 participants, some of which were representatives for various civil society organisations, political leaders, business gurus, students and government agencies, all in attendance for a rigorous consultative dialogue geared towards the way forward for Ghana.
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Story by: Esther Esenam Ofori | univers.ug.edu.gh
