“Northern Ghana needs Partnership for Development, not Charities” says Oxfam Country Director

Country Director of Oxfam – Ghana, Mohammed-Anwar Sadat Adam has encouraged Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in northern Ghana to cultivate the culture of working with others within the same space for better outcomes.

According to him the existing practice whereby NGOs work in silos or are seen to be in competition for resources, brands or logos has yielded little significance to the area’s development, hence the need for a shift towards co-creation of solutions.

Alhaji Sadat who was speaking at the 3rd Northern Ghana Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) Forum in Tamale, held under the theme: “Enhancing Coordination and Mutual Accountability” stated that; “as CSOs actors within the development space, the courage to put the mission over specific organizations should be the ultimate.”

The forum, first held in 2021, followed with yet another in 2023, has become the single biggest platform that rallies together grassroots development organizations operating in the five regions of the north, to a common platform where they explore issues of mutual concerns in development work and how to achieve results together.

The forum was jointly organized by the Ghana Developing Communities Association, and School for Life, Norsaac and Sung Foundation among others with support from Oxfam and the Star Ghana Foundation,

The Country Director of Oxfam, reiterated that the north isn’t just poor, and thus required charities. Instead, he said with its huge potentials such as vibrant cultures, youthful population and the spirit of resilience, the area was clamoring for partnerships.

He urged CSOs or NGOs to strategize and not to align with existing bureaucracies. They should be transparent in sharing information, and do so timeously.

“We are at a crossroad and we must shift from the status quo – our call to action strategies as CSOs should include; developing a shared accountability Chatter, institutionalizing community led oversight for sustainability of our development activities and also leveraging on data generated from the universities and research institutions within our localities,” Sadat Adam added.

Northern Ghana Program Manager for Star Ghana Foundation, Fred Nuuri-Teg in a brief remark hoped that the forum for development actors will serve as a common amplifying voice to addressing developmental challenges in a more sustainable manner.

In a media interaction on the sidelines of the forum, Alhaji Mohamed Awal, who is the Executive Director for Norsaac, said the conversations were successfully held around building strong thematic networks and validating a comprehensive CSOs database, to exploring innovative funding strategies and pushing for constitutional review inputs. He added that this year’s forum had been more about action, impact and how to create the bigger change.

Earlier in his welcoming address, a member of the steering committee of the CSOs Forum who is also the Executive Secretary, Ghana Developing Communities Association (GDCA), Alhaji Abdul Rahman Osman, highlighted that the development challenge confronting the north were historical, but the advent of NGOs in the 1980s has help filled gaps in education, health, water supply, agriculture and livelihoods initiatives for the locals.

He said CSOs as complementing agents, their continuous advocacies were primarily meant to ensuring policy change and consistency on the part of government with the hope that, when resources are equitable allocated, northern Ghana to catch up with the south.

Story By: Nelson Adanuti Nyadror |www.diamondfmonline.com |Ghana.