My Ghana Electronic Desk

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE Professor Olivier Schutter The United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Professor Olivier De Schutter, has backed citizens worldwide who are demanding a fundamental shift in food and agricultural research to make them more democratic and accountable to society. De Schutter outlines his support in the foreword to a multimedia publication that the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), an independent, non-profit research institute based in London, UK, is set to launch today during the commemoration of World Food Day (16 October). He writes in the multimedia e-book titled Democratising Agricultural Research for Food Sovereignty in West Africa, that “The democratisation of agricultural research is vital for those who seek to make the human right to adequate food a reality.” Still in the foreword, the UN’s Special Rapporteur further applauds “the efforts that led to citizens’ jur...

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE The Rotary Club of Accra Ring Road Central has launched the celebration of 25 years of dedicated community service in Ghana under the theme: “25 years of Selfless Rotary Service”. As part of the celebrations which run till the end of the Rotary year 2010-2011, the club has planned activities including the rebranding of a bus stop along the Ring Road, Accra, completion of a project at a village in the Akuapem North District – the Asempanaye School project, a presentation of the 4Way Test Plaque and an Anniversary Gala to climax the year long activities  in June 2011. Commenting on the celebrations, the President of the club, Rotary President, Galina Okartei-Akko, said she was excited about the achievements of the Rotary Club of Accra Ring Road Central for the past 25 years. “It is an honour to serve as the 25th president of the RC of Accra Ring Road Central. RRC has indeed come a long way building communities and bridging continents with the s...

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE Mrs. Theodora Adomako-Adjei demonstrating how to effectively wash the hands This year, the observance of the Global Handwashing Day began in 2001 by a coalition, comes off today Friday October 15, 2010 with its focus on “Saving Lives Through Handwashing With Soap.” Ghana joined the bandwagon in 2006 and began marking the day with the rest of the world  in 2008. In a statement issued to mark the day, the National Coordinator for the event in Ghana, Theodora Adomako-Adjei says the practice of handwashing with soap has become one of the international hygiene agenda, as a result of which the United Nations General Assembly has designated October 15 as the Global Handwashing Day. She said this is intended to echo and reinforce its call for improved hygiene practices, adding, “The guiding vision of Global Handwashing Day is a local and global culture of handwashing with soap.” Theodora Adomako-Adjei, who is also the Regional Extension Services Spe...

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE Twenty-nine countries have levels of hunger that are alarming or extremely alarming, says the 2010 Global Hunger Index (GHI) report released today. The report, co-authored by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe, both international NGOs, says among the world’s regions, South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa continue to suffer from the highest levels of hunger, stressing that “these results represent extreme suffering for millions of people.” “Most of the countries with ‘alarming’ GHI scores are in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia,” it states. According to the 54-page Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2010 report; “Twenty-nine countries still have levels of hunger that are ‘extremely alarming’ or ‘alarming,’” adding that “The countries with “extremely alarming” 2010 GHI scores – Burundi, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Eritrea – are in Sub-Saharan Africa. Apart from the fact that the four c...

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE A new Global Hunger Index (GHI) report released today in Washington DC, has identified malnutrition among children under two years of age as one of the leading challenges to reducing global hunger, stating that it can cause lifelong harm to health, productivity, and earning potential. The report has thus recommended that “To improve their scores, many countries must accelerate progress in reducing child malnutrition,” adding that considerable research shows that the window of opportunity for improving nutrition spans from conception to age two. It proposes further that to reduce global hunger, countries must target interventions where they will do the most good – among pregnant and breastfeeding women and children in their first two years of life. The GHI also tasks countries to address the underlying causes of under-nutrition, including poverty, gender inequality, and conflict; engage, empower, and support those working at the local level to improve nutriti...

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE A Typical Food Market in Ghana The Global Hunger Index (GHI) report for 2010 released today has confirmed that Ghana is on track to meeting the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target of reducing by half the percentage of its population who are hungry, by 2015. “Only one country in Sub-Saharan Africa – Ghana – is among the 10 best performers in improving their GHI score since 1990,” says the report, which is titled “The Challenge of Hunger: Focus on The Crisis of Child Undernutrition”. According to the 2010 GHI prepared jointly by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe, Ghana was the seventh among 10 countries worldwide considered as winners in their ability to downsize the number of hungry people from the period 1990 to 2010. It states that Ghana was able to reduce its hungry by 57%, whilst Kuwait topped the group with 73% and Peru at the bottom with 54%. The rest on the table were, Malaysia – 63...

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE Although a host of countries all over the world are plagued by the menace of counterfeiting of their currencies, the United Kingdom (UK) tops the list of countries worst affected. The Bank of England is however working feverishly to address that challenge and was able to reduce the rate of counterfeiting of its Pounds Sterling from 1,000,000 notes to about 750,000 in 2009, latest reports say. This came to light during a Bank Note and Cash Processing Education  programme organised for the media in Accra Thursday by the Bank of Ghana (BoG) in collaboration with De La Rue, UK printers of the Ghana Cedi. Information gleaned from the Bank of England’s website, nonetheless states that during calendar year 2009 the number of counterfeit Bank of England banknotes taken out of circulation was around 566,000 with a face value of £11.1million. To the Bank though, compared with the average number of genuine banknotes in circulation, of over 2.4 billion notes, the in...

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE Until a group of journalists were quizzed on the picture behind Ghana’s current biggest bank note – the GH¢50 note, everyone assumed the average Ghanaian knew the basic features of the bank notes that are used as legal tender in the country. And why not, especially when the Ghana cedi note or currency was introduced and put in circulation barely three years ago after much fanfare, education and advertisements. But it appears that apart from the catchphrase – “the value is the same” that run through all the adverts announcing the change in Ghana’s notes, everyone has taken for granted and indeed forgotten entirely, the basic features of the notes that we use as money for transactions in the country every day. It was brought to the fore at a workshop organised for a select group of journalists in Accra on Thursday by the Bank of Ghana (BoG) in collaboration with De La Rue of the United Kingdom, printers of Ghana’s money, that indeed, even though all Ghanaians l...

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE  Traditional Rulers, Civil Society and Community Based Organisations (CBOs) in the Western Region, have called on duty-bearers in the oil and Gas industry to, as a matter of urgency, develop a regional capacity for adequate and comprehensive responses to any disaster or mass casualty that may result from the activities of the oil and gas industry. According to them, such capacity must incorporate the upgrading and the improvement of the capacity of the existing accident and emergency centre, while the plans for a Regional Teaching Hospital should be fast tracked. They have also asked the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) and the headquarters of the oil and gas industry to be moved to the region, to promote the spatial planning of Ghana. Making this call through a communiqué issued at the end of a two-day development forum held in Takoradi on September 24 and 25, 2010, the representatives also asked that linkages be promoted to ensure community p...