United States supports credible, peaceful elections in Ghana with US$1.2

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE

Biometric Voter ID that will be used for voting

The United States Government has awarded a grant of US $1.2 million through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), to the Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), to help enhance peaceful and credible elections in December 2012.

According to a press release from the public affairs section of the United States Embassy in Ghana,the grant will be used to support a twelve-month project on “civil society interventions toward peaceful and credible elections.”

The USAID-assisted CDD-Ghana project aims at enhancing election transparency and credibility, equality of opportunity, and ensuring that the final results are legitimate and accepted by all parties, the release stated further.

It says the agreement will enable CDD-Ghana, in collaboration with the Coalition of Domestic Election Observers (CODEO), independently assess activities and events with the objective of strengthening the electoral process in the span of a twelve-month period.

CDD-Ghana and CODEO will also train and, on polling day, deploy roughly 4,000 observers to ensure a strong observer presence at randomly selected polling stations countrywide, says the US Embassy.

In addition, CDD-Ghana and CODEO will observe voting and counting of ballots at the polling stations, collect official polling station results and independently tabulate them to provide another layer of transparency to official election results.

Ms. Cheryl Anderson, USAID/Ghana Mission Director, and Professor Gyimah-Boadi, Executive Director of CDD-Ghana, signed the agreement for their respective organisations on Wednesday, March 21, 2012 in Accra.

Ms. Anderson said: “The American people are delighted to assist in further deepening and strengthening civil society involvement and participation in Election 2012. We sincerely hope that this contribution will go a long way in strengthening the country’s electoral process for a credible, peaceful, free and fair election.”