After 3 decades of operating in Ghana, ActionAid Ghana has introduced its 7th Country Strategic Paper which gives directions on the line of priority areas the humanitarian organization will focus on to drive social change and contribute to the development of communities for the next 5years (2023-2028).
The New Country Strategic Paper which is Christened ‘Active Citizenship for Social Justice’ to achieve “A just, feminist, and resilient Ghana, offering equitable opportunities for all citizens” has three priority areas including a Green Economy and Resilient livelihoods, women’s rights and decent work, active citizenship, Accountability, and Gender Responsive Public Service.
Under Strategic Priorities 1; which is Green Economy and Resilient Livelihoods, the organization seeks to promote Agroecology and Food Sovereignty, expand access to green livelihoods, renewable energy and economic empowerment opportunities, enhance women’s secured access to and control over land and other productive resources. It equally seeks to promote disaster risk reduction and humanitarian response and promote climate change.
When it comes to Strategic Priorities 2 which pays attention to women’s rights and decent work, ActionAid Ghana will advocate for zero tolerance for violence against women and girls, campaign for the recognition, redistribution, and reduction of the burden of care work, promote decent work in both formal and informal workspaces, promote access to sexual and reproductive health rights with the last focused area being the promotion of access to existing social protection services.
Strategic Priorities 3 aims to enhance active citizenship, accountability, and gender-responsive public services.
The focused areas under this include enhancing progressive mobilization and redistribution of public resources, promoting access to quality and gender-responsive public basic education, promote access to Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Services.
Other focused areas are the promotion of active citizenship and gender-inclusive political participation and combatting violent extremism and conflicts.
As part of the implementation of the CSP 7, the organization held a regional dissemination meeting in Bolgatanga on Wednesday, March 27, 2024, which brought together various stakeholders, and partners drawn from the agricultural sector, human rights-based groups, NGOs, the media, youth movements, education amongst others.
In his statement, the Country Director of ActionAid Ghana, John Nkaw noted that the widening poverty, gender inequality, and increasing injustices worldwide call for immediate measures and a community-centered approach towards addressing development challenges.
Speaking to Journalists on the sidelines of the Upper East Regional dissemination meeting, Gbene Ali Malik, Quality and knowledge Management Manager, at ActionAid Ghana, says the Country Strategic Paper is a guiding document that gives direction on the focus areas.
He added that the dissemination meeting was to help stakeholders and partners understand areas of focus and how they can contribute to attaining the desired results as he details the strategic Priorities and focus areas.
“This is a strategy or program that we implement across our program areas in collaboration with various stakeholders so we must engage them to get a deeper understanding of what the strategy is so we can all work together to achieve the objectives.” He noted.
According to him, the various stakeholders have a vital role to play in the implementation of the strategies to drive the needed change.
“For the stakeholders, it is a collaboration and so if you even want to implement some of the actions, some of them serve as resource persons and some also have the official mandate so they also give us information to understand some context to design appropriate interventions. For the community level stakeholders, we need them to drive sociocultural changes.” He stressed.
