APA – Accra (Ghana)
The call by the United Nations (UN) Resident Coordinator in Ghana, Dr Charles Abani, for urgent action and international collaborations to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) amidst the surging global challenges is one of the trending stories in the Ghanaian press on Thursday.
The Ghanaian Times reports that the United Nations (UN) Resident Coordinator in Ghana, Dr Charles Abani, has called for urgent action and international collaborations to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) amidst the surging global challenges.
He said a report released by the UN revealed that more than half of the world is falling behind in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with just 12 per cent of the SDG targets deemed to be on track.
“Also, progress on 50 per cent of these targets is described as weak and insufficient, while over 30 per cent have either stalled or regressed, painting a bleak picture of global efforts to address these critical objectives,” he said.
He said the 2030 Agenda, aimed at eradicating poverty, promoting gender equality, and combating climate change, may become an unattainable dream unless immediate action was taken.
Dr Abani, said this in an interaction with journalists at the SDGs Consultative Meeting on Ghana’s Circular Economy and Bridging the SDG Financial Gap on Tuesday in Accra.
He underscored the importance of global solidarity and commitment to address the urgent issues highlighted in the SDG Progress Report.
“It’s a tough story and there is a crisis, but it is not undoable. With the right kind of global commitment in resources around priorities and the right national identification of the priorities that apply in each country, achieving the SDGs is not beyond us,” he stated.
The newspaper says that the Ministry of Health (MoH) is putting measures in place to curb the mass migration of health workers into other countries, and its implication for Ghana, says the sector minister, Kwaku Agyeman-Manu.
He said though health worker migration was a global phenomenon, the MoH’s Human Resource Policy Direction aims to strengthen mechanisms for the production, deployment, retention and reintegration of health workforce to meet local and global demands.
Mr Kwaku Agyeman-Manu made these known when he took his turn at the Meet-the-Press series in Accra on Thursday to provide insight into progress made by the Ministry in providing good health services.
It is recalled that the General Secretary of the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association (GRNMA), Dr David Tenkorang-Twum, disclosed that a chunk number of nurses sought clearance from the GRNMA Secretariat to leave the country for greener pastures.
To address this, Mr Agyeman-Manu said the ministry was working within local and international frameworks for Health workforce deployment and reintegration in addition to close collaboration with the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations to streamline the Migration Policy to address current and future emerging issues.
This, the minister said would ensure financial and brain gain from international deployment of health workforce through mutually beneficial bilateral agreements.
“Government started managing migration in small quantities from Ghana to Barbados. So the new strategy is that, we will engage those who need some of our nurses to see how best we would allow them go and work,” he said.
The Ghanaian Times also reports that former President John Dramani Mahama has urged unregistered voters to take advantage of the upcoming limited voter registration exercise to get on to the voters roll in readiness to vote the New Patriotic Party-formed administration out of power in the 2024 elections.
The former president who is also the flagbearer of the opposition National Democratic Congress for next year’s election “strongly urge the EC to facilitate the exercise in all its electoral areas to allow for easy access and a reduced burden on the citizenry in their quest to register.”
He also requested of the EC to be transparent in the registration process by publishing the names of personnel undertaking the exercise and the number of work stations, registration kits and other logistics to be used in the exercise.
In an address to the nation via his social media platforms from his residence in Accra yesterday, Mr Mahama said it has become an obligation to vote the government out owing to its poor performance in government and doing so, stars with the acquisition of a voters ID card.
“I’m here to encourage you wherever you are in Ghana and beyond. If you don’t have a voters’ identity card, especially if you just turned 18, please take advantage of this exercise which starts on September 12, 2023. Start making the necessary arrangements to register and get your voters identity card,” he entreated.
Voting, the former president observed, is a very critical democratic exercise which every citizen must partake in to make their voices heard and to shape society.
According to him, as a result of the poor management of the scarce resources of the country by the Akufo-Addo administration, Ghana is grappling with severe economic crisis, the lives of the people defined to daily struggles to eke out a living with job opportunities becoming more difficult by the day.
“Our people; the youth, the elderly, drivers, market women, civil servants, security personnel, teachers, journalists, nurses and doctors, are all experiencing a sense of hopelessness on a scale never witnessed in recent memory.
“This dire situation calls for urgent action and the most powerful tool at our disposal is our right to vote.”
The Graphic says that about 2,000 nurses working in state and mission health facilities in the country have migrated abroad in recent years, the Ministry of Health has said.
At least, 1,400 of the emigrant nurses worked under the Ghana Health Service (GHS), while the remaining 600 worked at facilities of the Christian Health Association of Ghana (CHAG).
The Minister of Health, Kwaku Agyemang-Manu, who said this when he took his turn at the Minister’s Press briefing in Accra yesterday, did not, however, indicate the period the migration happened.
He said the situation had not significantly challenged work at health facilities. “We are getting very serious distress messages from the facilities that if we don’t bring new ones, they can’t work.
We are managing the situation,” the minister added.
He said although the phenomenon of health workers’ migration was a global occurrence, the MoH was working closely with the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations to streamline the migration policy to address current and future emerging issues.
Mr Agyemang-Manu, who focused on three main areas of achievements —policies, strategic plans, collaborations and legislations; human resource for health achievements and national E-health project, and health infrastructure projects, added that 636 nurses and midwives specialists were trained from 2019 to 2022, while 888 senior medical specialists also received training in various areas.
GIK/APA
Ghana: Press zooms in on urgent action needed to achieve SDGs, others
