Mr Jimm Chick Fomunjong, the head of the Knowledge Management and Communication Unit, West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI), has urged philanthropic organisations to collaborate to champion the development of communities.
Speaking at the Giving for Change (GFC) Learning and Reflection Partner meeting in Accra he said philanthropy was one of the key ways through which development was championed across the globe.
The meeting was organized by WACSI in partnership with STAR-Ghana Foundation.
The Giving for Change is a global programme that seeks to reimagine, rethink and redeploy the way philanthropy is done.
“This project is a spread of different actors within the development space that are collaborating, reengineering the way we are thinking philanthropy, the way we are doing philanthropy and most importantly, documenting what we are doing and seeing how best our practices at a micro level can connect and really bring about change that can inspire global action in the global philanthropic landscape,” he stated.
On his part, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of STAR-Ghana Foundation, Ibrahim Tanko Amidu, disclosed that GFC Project is being implemented in Ghana over a five-year period by the STAR-Ghana Foundation with funding from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
He said the focus of the project was to support countries to explore ways to promote community philanthropy by looking at how resources could be internally mobilized for development purposes.
“For so long, development has been funded by external donors but we do know that external donors’ support to Africa and parts of Asia is declining as a result of the covid- pandemic, economic crisis and change in priorities.
“We cannot say the development of our country would stop because others are not giving us money, so the intention is to look at how we can mobilize our resources internally, not just funds but efforts to promote development,” he stated.
He said the foundation was currently working on five projects including one in Upper West Region which was mobilizing community resources to fund the building of a number of health centers and Community Health Planning and Services (CHPS) compounds.
“The Northern Region project is working to mobilize resources to support women and their children, the Volta Region project is mobilizing resources to help disabled people,” he added.
He noted, that people are willing to donate, but they must believe in the cause before they support it.
“The receiving organization must be trusted, if people do not trust you, they would not donate,” he added.
The GfC project seeks to transform the way development is done by promoting local giving as a strategy for achieving community-led development and implemented in 10 countries across Africa and Asia.
Patience Anaadem, ISD
