Ghana’s resources are waste without human capital development – President
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has provided insight into the government’s ambition to broaden Ghana’s human capital base, stating that the agenda is to ensure rapid development.
“We are paying a great deal of attention to the reconstruction of our educational system, right from primary school to university, because our view is relatively simple – it is people that develop nations, not resources,” he stated.
President Akufo-Addo, in an interaction with officials of the US-based Indiana University (IU), at the Jubilee House, Accra, said “education has been at the centre of what we are trying to do here in Ghana in the last decade.”
The country’s objective is to balance its vast natural resources with the necessary human capital for wealth creation and sustainable growth.
Ghana, despite its well-endowed resources, is still struggling to make the most out of what nature has bequeathed the West African nation – gold, diamond, bauxite, iron ore, lithium, cocoa, oil, arable land, natural gas reserves, among others.
The World Bank, in its 2022 report on Country Climate and Development Report on Ghana, noted that the country had not been able to maintain its natural resources.
The country lags in most indicators of sustainable use of natural resources and environmental health, says the Report.
“You can have all the resources you want but if you do not have the human capital in exploiting them, it is like not having at all,” President Nana Akufo-Addo noted, justifying the huge investment in education under his administration.
The IU delegation, led by Hilary Kahn, the Vice President for International Affairs, is in the country to deepen partnership with the University of Ghana, Legon, as part of its global engagement strategy.
Ghana’s foremost university has been a long-standing partner of the IU, with a focus on research collaboration, faculty and student exchanges, and joint initiatives in Artificial Intelligence, climate change, environmental and health sciences, data science, development policy and African languages and cultures.
Dr Kahn said the IU was delighted to be associated with the University of Ghana, and hoped the collaboration would inure to the benefit of the two countries, especially around human resource development.
Source: GNA