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Star-Ghana Foundation partners Botnar Foundation to implement Action for Youth Development project
EUNICE AGBENYADZI ADDRESSING THE PARTICIPANTS ON THE PROJECT
Star-Ghana Foundation with funding from the Botnar Foundation has started the implementation of a three-year-project named Action for Youth Development (AfYD) in the New Juaben South Municipality (NJSMA)of the Eastern region.
The project also known as “our city project” with focus on the youth as the primary target would contribute to a municipality where young people would be informed and have the capacity to participate actively in governance and influence improved services across all sectors.
It would also strengthen the capacities of the youth-led/ based organisations, networks and coalition to mobilize, represent and engage constructively with duty bearers to sustainably address their needs and priorities in decisions and resources distribution.
The Head of Programmes at Star-Ghana Foundation, Eunice R. Agbenyadzi made this known at an inception durbar held to provide a larger platform for all relevant stakeholders particularly the youth groups, municipal authorities, traditional leaders, and other actors to deliberate and provide more inputs for the design and implementation of the project.
Ms Agbenyadzi indicated that in 2020, the district league table (DLT 2020) rated the New Juaben Municipality as one of the 10 least performing districts on governance.
“The score indicated a poor performance in the implementation of its action plan for development, and as the action plan is a critical tool for development, its poor implementation impacts on the quality of services,” she added.
For that reason, she stated that Star-Ghana Foundation with funding from Botnar came up with the project to help to whip up the interest of the citizenry, especially the youth to engage themselves in the issues of governance and to press on duty bearers to engage the citizenry in their activities.
“Overall, this project would contribute to ensuring that young people are not left behind in the development processes and benefits and would promote partnership between duty bearers and citizens to ensure that development programming is more meaningful for young people and delivers health and wellbeing, access to social services, including education, decent work for young people,” she said.
She revealed that the project was approached from an inclusion perspective and would contribute to reducing inequalities within access to social services for different categories of young people and would strengthen an enabling environment for youth inclusion and influence in governance as well as access to quality public goods and services within Koforidua.
“Through this focus, the AfYD makes a direct impact on the achievements of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 1,2,3,4,5,8,10 and 16,” the Head of Programmes indicated.
For his part, the Coordinating Director of the NJSMA, Mr Edward Abazing was grateful to Star-Ghana Foundation and Botnar for the project build the capacities of the youth and whip up their interest to participate in their programmes.
He indicated that the assembly as part of its programmes deem it necessary to plan with the youth on their programmes, revealing that unfortunately most of the youth refused to show interest or attend their programmes when they were needed to share their inputs during town hall meeting among others.
He stated that the project would help greatly to bring them on board to contribute their quota in the development of the assembly.
A representative of Botnar Foundation, Zur Oren said his outfit was working in 12 counties around the world of which Ghana was part and was committed to developing young people.
He stated that the project would succeed based on collaboration and urged Star-Ghana Foundation to take the wheel and gear the project by involving all stakeholders in a manner that would benefit the people of Koforidua.
From Ama Tekyiwaa Ampadu Agyeman, Koforidua
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GEXIM deepens relations with US EXIM Bank
A management team of the Ghana Export – Import Bank (GEXIM) led by the Acting Chief Executive, Sylvester Mensah met with the leadership of the Export–Import Bank of the United States (US EXIM) on Wednesday April 23, 2025 in Washington DC, United States of America.
The Acting President and Chairman of US EXIM, Mr. James C. Cruse and Vice President, International Relations, Ms. Isabel Galdiz received the GEXIM delegation, which included Deputy CEO for Banking, Mr. Moses Klu Mensah and Head of International Cooperation, Mr. Jonathan Christopher Koney at the headquarters of US EXIM.
The meeting offered the GEXIM team the opportunity to share the strategic direction of the Bank in line with the resetting agenda of the President of the Republic, His Excellency John Dramani Mahama for the repositioning of the Ghanaian economy into an export-led one by providing the requisite investment to Ghanaian businesses.
Mr. James C. Cruse expressed US EXIM’s eagerness to deepen its existing relations with GEXIM and proposed the signing of a new Cooperative Framework Agreement following the expiration of a Memorandum of Understanding signed in 2019 to utilize US EXIM’s medium term loan guarantees to procure machinery by GEXIM for qualified Ghanaian Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs).
Mr.Sylvester Mensah thanked the Acting President and Chairman of US EXIM for hosting the GEXIM delegation and reaffirmed the Ghanaian government’s commitment to strengthening trade and investment between Ghana and its global partners for economic transformation of Ghana with GEXIM playing a pivotal role.
The two teams will be meeting on the sidelines of the 2025 US EXIM Annual Conference on 29th and April 30, 2025 to explore possible areas of collaboration and matching Ghanaian businesses to American companies. The meeting ended with an exchange of gifts.
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Many SOEs have been used as mere instruments for personal wealth accumulation –Pres.Mahama
President John Dramani Mahama has expressed concern over the misuse of State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) for personal financial gain by individuals in leadership positions.
Speaking during a meeting with Chief Executives of specified entities under the State Interest and Governance Authority (SIGA) on Thursday, March 13, the President directly attributed the dire state of SOEs to their leadership, accusing chief executives, management teams, and governing boards of prioritising personal enrichment over organisational efficiency.
He pointed to bloated budgets, unjustified allowances, and unnecessary expenditures as factors draining public funds while SOEs continue to rely on government bailouts.
“Many SOEs have been used as mere instruments for personal wealth accumulation by appointees. The chief executives, management, and boards of these enterprises are responsible for this situation. Some SOEs have become perennial loss-makers, draining public funds with bloated budgets, unjustified allowances, and unnecessary expenditures while relying on government bailouts as if entitled to them. Many of these entities are at their lowest point in the entire history of the Fourth Republic,” he said.
President Mahama further noted that many SOEs have been plagued by inefficiencies, corruption, and mismanagement, leading to consistent financial losses. He cited the 2023 State Ownership Report by the State Interests and Governance Authority (SIGA), which highlighted systemic inefficiencies and wasteful expenditures within these entities.
He therefore reaffirmed his commitment to reforming under-performing SOEs and ensuring they serve national interests.
He warned that loss-making SOEs will no longer be tolerated and will either be merged, privatised, or closed.
“I will assess you based on your performance. If you do not align with the pace of the reset agenda, you may be asked to step aside. If that adds to the horror movie, so be it,” he added.
Source: Myjoyonline.com
