GCAP Blog

In Ghana groups have been celebrating the day for the past 8 years, advocating for youth empowerment in the country through youth friendly policies and programmes by government.

This year’s celebration was unique because it coincided with the launch of the long-awaited National Youth Policy. The celebration was on the theme “The Youth as a Channel in Efforts at Achieving the MDGs – The role of the National Youth Policy”. 

The day was marked in collaboration with the Ghana MDGs/GCAP Campaign Coalition through its Youth Platform, IDAY Ghana, AYICC Ghana and the United Nations Millennium Campaign.

Mr. Kenneth Nana Amoateng, the acting Chief Executive Officer of Abibimman Foundation welcomed all to the event and expressed confidence that the outcome of the celebration will be used to influence national policies and programmes at addressing the needs of young people in the country.

“As part of efforts to make the voices of young people be seen and heard, the Foundation for the past 6 years has been engaging government’s and youth leaders of the various political parties in formulating a national youth policy for the country,” he said, “It is very encouraging that the national youth policy is been launched after many years of advocacy. It is rather unfortunate that government did not consult the various stakeholders in finalising the policy before launching it and this will not ensure ownership and sustainability.”

The Chairperson for the dialogue, Sonia Kwami of GCAP in her opening remarks noted that “no society can develop without adequately resourcing its young people to contribute towards development efforts,”

A dialogue on 3 key themes followed – 1) decent work, 2) Ghana’s oil find and youth development , 3) Climate change and an Action Plan for moving forward was also developed. 

Decent Work

 Unemployment and underemployment are forms of exclusions that affect many people in Ghana. Employment has not featured as an important macroeconomic variable over more than two decades of macroeconomic stabilization, structural adjustment and economic liberalization. The absence of reliable data on employment exposes the neglect of employment issues by successive governments. On youth employment situation in Ghana, the most recent data on unemployment and underemployment may be found in the Core Welfare Indicators Questionnaire survey ( CWIQ) conducted in 2003 by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS). In the survey, unemployment was defined to include all “persons 15 years or older who did not work in the last seven days preceding the survey and looked for work in the same period”. Underemployment was defined to include all “employed persons aged 15 year or older who worked for 35 hours or less in the last seven days preceding the survey and sought to increase their earning” There is therefore a decent work deficit- challenges, gaps and exclusions that working people face in the world of work. These deficits negate government effort of eradicating poverty and achieving the MDGs.  CSO’s should vigorous advocate for decent work   targeting young people, decision makers, employers, government etc.  The campaign must use different tools and strategies adapted to different audience including: A media campaign to make decent work a recognizable concept among citizens and employers.

Ghana's Oil find and young people 

Addressing the prospects and threats for the youth in connection with Ghana's oil find, Mohammed Amin Adam of Publish What You Pay Ghana (PWYP) noted that the youth of Ghana embraced the discovery of oil with varying expectations. There are some who are expecting jobs from the sector. There are even those who expect the cost of public services such as transportation, electricity, school fees to be reduced. Whiles these expectations may be genuine, the realization of these expectations are far from reality. The investment policy adopted by the government for the oil and gas revenues will play a crucial role in determining the future of the youth in this country. One way the youth can benefit from the oil find is through public investment in sectors that directly impact on the youth.

Since the petroleum revenue management bill provides for a heritage fund to ensure inter-generational equity, it will serve the youth of today and the future if they through advocacy based organizations upgrade their knowledge and skills to monitor the management of petroleum revenues, inflows of revenues, and to ensure the managers of these resources are held accountable.

However, the omission of the youth from the proposed Public Interest and Accountability Committee which will be set up to provide public oversight over the management of petroleum revenues very unfortunate.

Climate Change, Young People & MDGs

Mr. Samuel Confidence Dotse, Country Coordinator, Climate Action Network, addressed the youth on the role they could play as ambassadors of climate change in Ghana. Climate change has great significance for sustainable development plans, life and livelihoods and it is seen as a development issue for Ghana. It affects such important economic areas and sectors like water resource, natural resource management and biodiversity, human health, food security, settlements and infrastructure and desertification, coastal erosion and sea level rise.

Young people have the greatest stake in whether or not the world succeeds in its quest to address climate change within the context of sustainable development. The youth have the most to lose if world leaders and politicians including Ghana fail in addressing climate change adaption and mitigation responses. Youth are a key segment of society and have proven to be

an important group on actions and programs to address environmental issues. Youth are also a key point of influence for other segments of society such as families and communities. Young people are an important source of creativity, enthusiasm and drive for any actions to address climate change.

Emerging Issues/ Action Plans

· Young people should review the launched Youth Policy for engagement

· Government should set up a fund to educate young people on oil and gas. They should be integrated into oil gas development processes

· Educational material and action kits on decent work to be distributed at youth events; Popular mobilization in demanding for decent work. Advocacy aimed at key decision makers (government, policy makers, employers,) should be embarked upon.

· Young people should monitor and advocate for the effective use of national resources for development

· Demand world leaders to keep promises they made to fulfil the MDGs by 2015

· Government and development partners should make the MDGs youthful friendly for their engagement

· Young people should be agents of climate change and green revolution

As part of this effort, there has been widespread engagement with the MDG monitoring and reporting processes and the identification of future priorities for action at the national and regional level. Globally, a consolidated response to the UN Report on the MDGs was submitted to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon; followed by the development of a co-ordinated civil society reaction to the Zero Draft of the Outcome Document and subsequent efforts for advocacy and engagement with the Co-facilitators of the review and other Member States.

A ‘The World We Want 2015: Outlining Future Strategies on the MDG Agenda’ event will be organized on the concluding day of the MDG+10 Review (22^nd Sep, Wed) in New York and is planned as an opportunity to bring together and consolidate the diverse efforts that have been organized across the year; and serve as the starting point for a renewed phase of public action and advocacy efforts on the MDG agenda in the next five years.

The experiences and expertise of civil society groups at the MDG+10 Review will be an important basis for the discussions that will be held as part of the day-long events which will also bring together a broad spectrum of social leaders and activists as well as representatives of the UN, governments and the media.  The side events which will be taking place on 20-21 September will also play a key part.

The release of a ‘New York Declaration on the MDGs’ outlining the priorities for public action and governance accountability will be a key outcome of the initiative.

The day’s event will close with a press conference in which high level civil society representatives will present their perspectives on what the MDG+10 Review has achieved and outline key areas of the agreed strategies for the way forward to 2015.

Please block your date for this important discussion; and contact Fionuala Cregan, GCAP Mobilization Co-ordinator at fionuala.cregan@whiteband.org to confirm your participation and find out how you can be involved with this effort.

Auditorium of the International Social Justice Conference

221 E 52nd Street, New York

September 22, 2010 - 9:00am-6:00pm

However, the constitution has no timeframe for the realisation of these targets. The MDGs mitigates or breaks the Constitutional silence on timeframe and facilitates a national review of policy effectiveness and introduce reforms to achieve the goals.

In 2005, South Africa produced the country report on the MDGs, primarily coordinated by the presidency, with mostly government input and little reference to the data and contribution of civil society. The report was highly exclusive and insensitive to the local realities of people and led to civil society organisations, including the SAHRC and SANGOCO, producing a shadow report on the MDGs.

The non‐recognition of civil society organisations as partners in development and weak multi‐stakeholder involvement continued in subsequent years. The presidency submitted NMDGR on behalf South African government in two consecutive years (2007/8) without civil society participation and these reports were later rejected by the United Nations, as this practice undermines the principles of the NMDGR set by United Nations members. In both instances civil society organisations did not produce a shadow report.

In the 2010 NMDGR process South African civil society organisations are witnessing a similar conduct of the government and its agencies in the form of Statistics SA and the Presidency along with their partner, the UNDP. In this instance, civil society has made an ongoing effort to engage meaningfully, seeking meetings and opportunities to influence the process and outcomes but to no avail, hence they have met and published a resolution.

Download and read the full resolution

Members from Wada Na Todo Abhiyan, Centre for Legislative Research and Advocacy, Oxfam India, Right to Food Campaign, United Nations Millennium Campaign, etc. were part of the delegation. In the context of the high-level plenary meeting of the UN General Assembly on the Millennium Development Goals that is scheduled to be held in New York during 20-22 September 2010, where Dr. Singh is expected to head the official Indian delegation and will participate in an evaluation exercise to take account of the successes and failures thus far, civil society organisations requested him to include representatives from civil organisations that have been committed in providing assistance to the government in its endeavour to achieve the MDGs by the set target of 2015.                                                                                        

The memorandum made several other general and goal specific recommendations that pushed for modifying policy making processes and for passing and properly implementing several social sector legislations that were drafted following promises of the government but haven’t been introduced and passed in the Parliament on account of several political pulls and pressures. The recommendations that related to the former included the following: the setting up of core\ad-hoc parliamentary committees on MDGs to oversee and monitor the implementation of all MDGs related legislations and to ensure that they are compatible with the latest up-to-date research and arguments of civil society organisations committed to the work on MDGs; pre-budgetary and pre-legislative participation of and consultation with civil society organisations in budget and policy making processes; setting up of monitoring and evaluation programmes at the district level; developing a national breakthrough plan to accelerate the progress made towards MDGs.

The recommendations that related to the latter, i.e. the goal specific recommendations included the following: introducing and passing the Right to Food Act; amending the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act to make it more inclusive; passing the Women’s Reservation Bill; introducing and passing the Prevention of Sexual Harassment at the Workplace Bill, 2007; and the finalisation of the National Health Bill, 2009. Ms. Nisha Agrawal, CEO, Oxfam India, said, “it is essential that the government increase budgetary allocations to the social sector, ensures governance accountability and provides access to natural resources like land, water and forests.”

Ms. Supriya Sule, highlighted related concerns of malnutrition and urged the Prime Minister to personally look into the matter.

Dr. Singh assured the delegates that the government was committed to the MDGs and was working towards their achievement by 2015. He took note of all their concerns and said that the government will consider the civil society demand for inclusion of civil society representatives to the UN General Assembly Meeting in September 2010 and said that he would personally look into matters of malnutrition, health, education, gender equality and work towards breaking down action plans to the district level.

Wada Na Todo Abhiyan Secretariat

Adelaide, a renowned campaigner from The Gambia, launched the Big Tent on Friday, July 23rd and by addressing festival goers at a joint presentation with Malcolm Fleming, Oxfam Scotland's Campaigns Manager.  The Big Tent’s theme was Moving with Africa and their discussion was about need for global solidarity and climate justice, focusing on the impact on the world’s poorest people.

 Adelaide Sosseh Announced-as Keynote Speaker for Big Tent | Adelaide Sosseh at The Big Tent Opening (video) |

By Sonia Kwami

The progress towards tackling maternal mortality has been disappointingly slow as Africa accounts for more than half of the global maternal deaths. This is very alarming as most of these deaths can be prevented through improved access to quality healthcare.

Convened by GCAP’s partner UNMC Africa, GCAP joined other CSO organizations in Africa to present issues to members of the Network of Parliamentarians for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).  CSOs represented included, Oxfam International, Abantu for Development, Fair Play for Africa Campaign, and more. The caucus group members of the network were from Uganda, Senegal and South Africa.  Some were also members of the Pan African Parliament.

Launched in Nigeria on March  29th, 2010 by UNMC Africa, the Network started with members of Parliament from Burkina Faso, Ghana, Uganda, Malawi, Nigeria, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Through this network, they committed to speak with one voice to ensure that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are achieved.  Participating in the round table were GCAP Members from Senegal, Uganda, Ghana, Malawi, Zambia and Nigeria. It was sad to note that only three out of the 52 African states had fulfilled their commitment of spending 15% of their GDP on health as pledged in the Abuja Declaration. Presenting the issues from GCAP were: Seth Abloso from the Global Council and the African Governing Council (AGC),  Muleba Matafwali from GCAP Zambia and Deo Nyanzi from GCAP Uganda and the AGC.

Commenting on the discussions, Honorable Toure (MP) from Senegal reiterated that CSOs must increase pressure on African Governments to to support health personnel to work effectively and monitor governments to deliver on meeting the Abuja declaration of spending 15% of their GDP on health. She also stressed the need for CSOs to share findings from evidenced based research to enable MPs utilize the results in approving government budgets and plans. This, she stressed, will ensure that more resources will be allocated towards meeting the MDGs.

Having equipped themselves with information from CSOs, the MPs pledged to engage governments during the AU Summit. Copies of the key issue document presented by GCAP were made available to the MPs in English and French.  

GCAP Africa sees this as a strategic opportunity to partner with MPs to engage African governments to adopt pragmatic measures to meet the MDGs by 2015.

Sonia Kwami is GCAP’s Project Accelerate Africa  Coordinator and can be reached at sonia.kwami@whiteband.org

GCAP Calls On AU To Deliver On Its MDG Commitments | Raising Our Voices | Somalia, Maternal Mortality Dominate Start of AU Summit

By Glenn Farred

An insightful overview of the G20 was provided Jinho Song (GCAP Korea), Jasmine Burnely (Oxfam International) and Chan-Geun Lee (Korean Confederation of Trade Unions). Dennis Howlett (Make Poverty History Canada) and Masaki Inaba (Africa Japan Forum/GCAP Japan) provided valuable insights into the organisation and engagement between civil society and previous Summits of the G8. Delegates had an opportunity to develop issue specific positions on areas such as Finance and Economic policy; Development and Gender as well as Labour and the Environment. These views were consolidated into the “Seoul Declaration” which is currently being finalised for endorsement by the organisations present.

The workshop also had an opportunity to engage with the Korean Sherpa who gave a presentation on the Korean government’s approach to the key issues on the agenda of the Seoul Summit. A question and answer session was held with the Sherpa and it reflected that many civil society issues on the process, substance and governance of the G20 need greater refinement to effectively impact on the G20 leaders.

Glenn Farred is GCAP’s Project Accelerate G20 Coorddinator and can be reached at Glenn.farred@whiteband.org

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Discussions on it in the UN GA will begin again end of August when member states return but introduction of new concerns or text will be almost impossible. Member states want the document closed by September 1^st.   Very few new issues have been added to the updated draft – strong G77 and EU tensions throughout the discussions.  The only thing they have been able to agree on is that the message they want in the document should be “The MDGs are achievable. They must orient development activity and investment.  Let’s do it now.”

READ NOW: Keeping the Promise: United to Achieve the MDGs

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The Pakistan MDG Report for 2010 covers the four years since 2006 in which numerous and far reaching developments have taken place which have transformed the social, political, and economic landscape of Pakistan, all having an impact – some favourable, others not so – on the outcomes, achievements and targets of Pakistan’s Millennium Development Goals. GCAP-Pakistan has facilitated a Civil Society Consultative Process across the country on MDG Review Report 2010 and has coordinated to ensure that these inputs are submitted to the Planning Commission of Pakistan, which is the coordinating agency for the National MDG Report.   Two l consultative meetings have already been heldat Peshawar and Karachi, and will also be held in Lahore and Quetta. GCAP-Pakistan is also developing a Civil Society Perspective Report on official MDG Report. 2010.  

A final consultative meeting will be held at Islamabad on 14th  August.-

For more information, please contact Mohd. Zia-ur-Rehman at zia@gcappakistan.net