Ghana Beyond Aid: EU Commits €1.25 billion to Support Ghana’s Long Term Development Plan

Ghanaian & EU delegation signing the Agreement.Credit: EU in Ghana 

Ghana has been trumpeting “Ghana Beyond Aid” for the past two years. “We want to build a Ghana beyond aid; a Ghana which looks to the use of its own resources. We want to build an economy that is not dependent on charity and handouts, but an economy that will look at the proper management of its resources as the way to engineer social and economic growth” stated the President of Ghana, Nana Akufo Addo . Despite this pronouncement from the President of Ghana, it seems the ability to snub aid has not been clearly defined.

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The European Union Ambassador to Ghana William Hanna, together with Ghana’s Finance Minister, Honourable Ken Ofori-Atta has signed four Financing Agreements worth €175 million on 30th January, 2018.

These funds will be employed to support Ghana's development programmes in Agriculture, Decentralization, Climate Change and Public Finance Management sectors.

The Ambassadors of Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain and Czech Republic participated in the ceremony.

Photo Credit: EU in Ghana

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The signing ceremony was followed by the launching of the new European Partners Cooperation Strategy 2017-2020 entitled "European Partners Working Together in Ghana".

In this strategy, the EU, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Kingdom have come together, and jointly commit a €1.25 billion envelope to supporting the priorities and objectives identified by the Government of Ghana in the Long-Term National Development Plan. The strategy jointly focuses on supporting two of Ghana’s key objectives (i) to build an industrialised, inclusive and resilient economy, and (ii) to build effective, efficient and dynamic institutions.

Even though Ghana’s Long-Term National Development Plan and AU’s Agenda 2063 have a well crafted financial strategies anchored on Domestic Resource Mobilization, there is a huge challenge in African countries to mobilize internal resources to undertake its own development agenda.
How then can African countries overcome the challenge to mobilize internal resources? This is a big question that demand an answer from all.

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See the full press statement.

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