The Chairman of the National Development Planning Commission, Prof George Gyan-Baffour, has said Ghana is making progress in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals 4 (SDGs).
Prof Gyan-Baffour, who was presenting Ghana’s Second Voluntary National Review (VNR) at this year’s United Nations High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) in New York, said after the easing of Covid19 restrictions, improvements have been made in children who engaged in any type of learning activity – increasing from 62.2 per cent to 71.3 per cent from June to September in 2020.
He added that: a “100 per cent completion rate has been achieved at Primary Level while JHS continue to record improvements reaching 83.1%.’’
On secondary education, Prof Gyan-Baffour said the Free Senior High School policy introduced in 2017, provides access to education, particularly for low-income households, adding that enrolment has increased from 54,186 in 2017 to 71,126 in 2021, representing an annual average growth of 7.8 per cent.
He indicated that the country also made progress in the forest cover, citing, for example, the aggressive tree planting campaign under the Green Ghana project, which led to the planting of 20 million trees in 2021 with the target of planting at least a 100million trees cumulatively by 2023.
He stated that internet use has increased tenfold in the last decade, reaching 80.6 per cent of the population, bringing people closer than ever before and providing an enabling environment for the government’s digitization agenda.
Prof Gyan-Baffour called for multi-stakeholder collaboration for innovation and resource mobilization, the establishment of an effective link between planning and resource allocation, the availability of quality data, and the ongoing coordination of the United Nations Country Team to appropriately cement the government’s achievements.
Adwoa Ocran, ISD
