Ghana Ready for 'HLF3' Forum (Page 34)

Story: Lucy Adoma Yeboah
GHANA is ready to welcome more than 1,000 international dignitaries who are expected to participate in the High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness scheduled for September 2 to 4, 2008 in Accra.
The Chief Director of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Nana Juaben-Boaten Siriboe, has said.
Dubbed “Accra HLF-3”, the forum, which is the third of its kind, is expected to take stock of and review progress made in implementing the 2005 Paris Declaration commitments, identify remaining bottlenecks and challenges and also determine the key actions both donors and recipient countries need to accelerate progress in making aid more effective.
Briefing the Daily Graphic in Accra on preparations so far made towards the commencement of the three-day international event, Nana Siriboe stated that “everything is on track”.
He explained that the inter-sectoral committee set up by the government about a year ago drew a lot of inspiration from some individuals, notably a Ghanaian career diplomat, Mr Aggrey Orleans, and also lessons from previous international events such as the African Union (AU) Summit, the Ghana 2008 football competition and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development UNCTAD XII, which were held recently in Accra and expressed the hope that everything would go on well.
He said hotel arrangements had been made in and around Accra to accommodate the dignitaries who were coming from all the six continents of the world, such as the United Kingdom (UK), United States of America (USA), Japan, Sweden, Germany, South Korea, Denmark, France, New Zealand, Fiji, Vietnam, Nigeria, Colombia and South Africa, among others.
He added that there had been contacts with some private car rental companies to offer transport services to support what the government had.
Among the dignitaries, according to Nana Siriboe, were the presidents of Liberia, Dr (Mrs) Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and that of Honduras, Mr Manuel Zelaya Rosales, as well as 120 ministers of finance and about 200 top officials from bilateral and multilateral organisations such as the World Bank, the Arab Bank for Economic Development, the Central American Bank for Economic Integration, the Council for European Development Bank, the European Investment Bank, the Global Fund, the OPEC Fund for International Development, and the Economic Commission for Africa, among others.
Other participants include heads of donor agencies, government organisations, international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and other civil society groups.
Nana Siriboe, who was in the company of the Head of the Public Relations Unit of the ministry, Ms Cecilia Akwetey, said about 200 journalists from both within and outside the country, had applied to be issued with accreditation to cover the event.
He said a joint team from the World Bank and the Organisation of Economic Community for Development (OECD), co-sponsors of the programme, was already in the Accra and had set up a secretariat on the premises of the State House to prepare for the opening of the event.
He added that journalists who had applied for accreditation could go to the secretariat for the processing of their accreditation cards from today, Friday, August 29, 2008.
Touching on the programme line-up, Nana Siriboe said the Chief Advisor to the President, Mrs Mary Chinery-Hesse, was scheduled to give the welcoming address on September 2, 2008, while President J.A. Kufuor opens a Ministerial Day of the High Level Forum on September 4, 2008.
Topics to be discussed include “Progress since the Paris Meeting and Aid and Development Effectiveness beyond Accra, Aid Effectiveness and Development Results: What Needs to Change and How can the International Aid System Deliver?, Climate Change Adaptation and Aid Effectiveness, The Role of Statistics in Aid Effectiveness, Regional Centres for Evaluation Capacity Development”, among others.
As part of the programme, there would be nine roundtable discussions, which would be chaired by highly competent individuals on the international scene, as well as side events to be organised by civil society groups from all over the world on some of the issues confronting developing countries.
The Chief Director added that the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) had agreed to record a programme dubbed “Who is Doing What for Africa?” by a group of panellists, who will include Ghana’s Finance Minister, Mr Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu, at the National Theatre on September 3, 2008.
In a related development, a release from a group of civil society organisations (CSOs) told the Daily Graphic that prior to the forum, a civil society parallel, Aid Effectiveness Forum, will bring together more than 400 CSOs from August 30 to September 1, to discuss and finalise their recommendations to the High Level Forum (HLF) decision makers.
The release, which was signed by K. Abdullai Kamara of Monrovia, Liberia, on behalf of ActionAid, said at the last High Level Forum, held in Paris in March 2005, that donors and governments signed onto “The Paris Declaration”, a five-year plan for reform of aid practices that included five principles to make aid delivery effective – country ownership, alignment to country priorities, harmonisation of the terms for aid, management of aid for results, and mutual accountability for these results – with related goals for action.
The Accra High Level Forum will review progress on these commitments, but equally important, the Forum may also establish an agenda for deepening these reforms over the next two years, leading to a successor Declaration to be agreed in 2011 in Beijing , China .