Dr. Yao Graham, the Coordinator of the Third World Network-Africa (TWN-Africa), has expressed disappointment in the implementation of the government’s Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) initiative and the One District One Factory (1D1F) project.
Speaking at the TWN-Africa@30 event, held under the theme ‘Organising for Equitable and Transformative Policies’ on Tuesday, November 26, Dr. Graham acknowledged the potential of these initiatives but criticised the execution, which he believes undermined their intended objectives.
Dr. Graham described the PFJ and 1D1F initiatives as novel and potentially transformative, commending the ambition behind their conception.
However, he was unequivocal in his assessment of their outcomes, stating that their implementation has largely failed to deliver the anticipated benefits.
His criticisms were based on research conducted to evaluate the impact of both programmes, which, according to him, revealed a troubling trend of underachievement and misalignment with Ghana’s broader developmental goals.
“In Ghana, the present government announced Ghana Beyond Aid and also set out two programmes which we thought were important markers in the direction in which we should be going if we want to undertake structural economic transformation, and these are the Planting for Food and Jobs and the One District One Factory projects.
“We carried out research on these two projects, and the results are disappointing. The gap between proclamation, implementation and therefore, the results of the researchers concluded that the Planting for Food and Jobs programme is largely one huge fertiliser subsidy programme which has not been interested in the more fundamental questions facing the agric sector.”
“The lack of coordination between the Planting for Food and Jobs programme and the One District One Factory meant that the transformative possibilities of the initiatives were not achieved,” Dr. Graham added.
Source: Kabah Atawoge