Advancing Sustainable Agricultural Growth: Ghana's President Engages Development Partners

President Nana Akufo-Addo addressing Development Partners during the October 26, 2023 Presidential Roundtable Meeting.

As part of the Government of Ghana’s (GoG) efforts to galvanize support for the effective implementation of its flagship agriculture program, the Planting for Food and Jobs Phase Two (PFJ 2.0), the President of the Republic, Nana Akufo-Addo met with Development Partners (DPs) to explore possible areas of collaboration and cooperation.

Prior to the Thursday, October 26, 2023, Presidential Roundtable meeting, hosted by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), with support from the Feed the Future Ghana Policy LINK Activity, the President had had similar engagements with the National House of Chiefs to advocate for agricultural land release; leadership of financial institutions to stress the importance of increased lending to the agricultural sector; and engagement of youth groups to highlight agribusiness opportunities.

The objective of the meeting with DPs, the fourth in a series, was to seek their support in funding, research, and infrastructure development to enhance agricultural productivity, value chains, and sustainable practices.

In his opening remarks, Dr. Bryan Acheampong, the MoFA Minister, acknowledged the DPs' active participation in the consultative process toward the redesign of the PFJ 2.0. He emphasized the importance of private sector involvement, funding from financial institutions, and development partner programs in ensuring the program's success.

Seidu Abu, Policy LINK's Collaborating, Learning, Adapting, Monitoring, and Evaluation lead, presenting findings on Development Partners' agriculture projects to participants.

The PFJ 2.0 is designed to ensure food availability, reduce food inflation, promote import substitution, promote exports, create jobs, and ensure food security and resilience. According to Dr. Acheampong, it is essential for DPs to refocus their programs and initiatives to align with the objectives of PFJ 2.0 to enable the program to achieve the target it has set for itself.

For his part, President Akufo-Addo stressed the need for alignment between foreign government projects and Ghana's priorities and called for a coherent approach, transparency, and collaboration between DPs and the government.

The President urged DPs to provide resources for monitoring and evaluation, to ensure accurate data collection, address weaknesses, promote accountability, and facilitate evidence-based decision-making.

“Our development efforts will have a more significant impact if efforts in monitoring and evaluation receive support from our friends and partners,” he explained.

Yasmi Yurdi, co-chair of the Agriculture Development Partners Group, extended the group’s appreciation for the attention it receives from the highest level of government and announced that DPs working in the agricultural sector have undertaken an exercise to align current initiatives, programming, and projects to the PFJ 2.0.

He emphasized the need for transparent structures to drive PFJ 2.0's implementation to achieve its goals.

On behalf of the Agriculture DPs group, Policy LINK made a presentation detailing DPs' investment in the sector, which informed the discussions by panelists at the event.

Resources

Learn more about Ghana’s Planting for Food and Jobs agricultural program.