The Head of European Union, Europe and Americas Unit of the Ministry of Finance, Ebenezer Nortey, has appealed to development organisations and donors to support the Civil Society Organisation in Research and Innovation for Sustainable Development (CSO-RISE) to help create jobs and address poverty at the local level.
According to him, the CSO-RISE was helping to address poverty and helping to address unemployment at the local level and additional donor and development organisations support would help expand the project to all the regions of the country.
The 9-million Euro project which started in 2019 which is expected to end in 2023 is jointly being funded by the European Union (EU) and the Government of Ghana.
It is being implemented in the Northern, Middle and Coastal Regions of the country.
Being implemented by the four Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), namely ActionAid, Cerath Development Organisation, Centre for Local Governance Advocacy (CLGA), and Cooperazione Internationale Sud Sud, the project is meant to address poverty and create jobs for the youth.
Mr Nortey in remarks made on his behalf by Mercy Akuyea Ashong, Schedule Officer for the CSO-RISE Programme, at a media workshop in Accra on Thursday, said the project was impacting the lives of people in the rural areas and helping them to eke a better living.
The workshop was to brief and update the media on the successes as well as the impact of the project.
Mr Nortey said ActionAid was implementing the Northern Ghana Integrated Development Project (NGIDP) in the Upper East, Upper West and Northern regions to promote opportunities for sustainable agriculture.
He said the Centre for Local Governance Advocacy (CLGA) is promoting access to Indigenous People to Decent Work and Social Protection in the Bono East areas on ginger and fish production, and Cooperazione Internationale Sud Sud is implementing the Sustainable Livelihoods to promote sustainable agriculture and organic waste management to social protection and decent work in the savannah Ecological Zone.
Mr Nortey said the Ministry of Finance was providing technical assistance to the project and selection of the grantees for the project.
He said the Ministry of Finance had been monitoring the programmes to ensure that it was in line with government policies and development objectives.
“Personally, I have been on the field and I saw what the people benefiting from the project. So I will recommend other donors to come on board to support the programme and expand it to other regions,” Mr Nortey, said.
He commended the donors and the CSOs implementing the project for the good work done.
The Team Leader of Technical Assistant Team of the CSO-RISE project, Mrs Mary Tobbin Osei in an interview said the lessons and data gathered through the project could help influence policy and development policies of the government.
Particularly, she said, the process was used to select the beneficiaries for the Promoting Access to Indigenous People to Decent Work and Social Protection the Bono East areas, which involved the extreme poor, could be used for the Livelihood Empowerment against Poverty Programme.
Mrs Osei indicated that the project had helped to create thousands of jobs at the local level to lift people out of poverty, saying the ginger and fisheries had created more than 200 jobs and beneficiaries had been given entrepreneurial training and trained good agronomic and farming practices.
BY KINGSLEY ASARE
