USAID fortifies development efforts in the Ashanti Region
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Ghana Mission Director, Andrew Karas, paid a working visit to the Ashanti Region to observe the agency’s programmes and activities that are being implemented in the area.
The USAID programmes in the area focus on economic growth, governance and health.
The objective of the visit was to strengthen USAID’s partnerships in Ghana’s Ashanti Region to achieve positive development results, a press release copied to ghanabusinessnews.com has said.
The visit which began from February 28 to March 3, 2017 saw Mr Karas visiting the Ministry of Employment and Labor Relations and the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) to discuss collaborative efforts to address the issue of child labour in Ghana’s cocoa sector, the release said.
Since 2015, the US government has supported the Government of Ghana in the Ashanti and Western Regions through the Mobilizing Community Action and Promoting Opportunities for Youth in Ghana’s Cocoa-Growing Communities (MOCA) project to diminish child labour at the community level, it further said.
Mr. Karas also met with the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit of the Ghana Police Service in Kumasi, where he learned about the successes and challenges of countering human traffickers.
During his visit, he toured Farmer’s Hope, an organic fertilizer producing company, as well as Vesta Oil Mill, a soybean oil and cake processing plan—jointly supported by the US government’s global hunger and food security initiative, Feed the Future.
Mr. Karas met with the Ashanti Regional Minister and participated in a domestic resource mobilization workshop with district assembly members at the Ashanti Region Coordinating Council. The workshop highlighted topics such as public financial management and tax policies to encourage the spending of public funds in an accountable and transparent manner, the release further said.
He ended the trip with a visit to the Ejisu Juabeng Government Hospital, where USAID, through the President’s Malaria Initiative, provides training to health workers in malaria case management and diagnosis. While there, he observed clinical training on preventative and curative malaria interventions for malaria control in Ghana.
USAID/Ghana works in four key areas: economic growth, education, health and democracy. USAID works with the Ghana government to boost agricultural productivity, increase access to education, improve health services and promote good governance.
By Pamela Ofori-Boateng