Ghana

In September 2000, at the United Nations Millennium Summit, world leaders agreed to a set of time-bound and measurable goals and targets for combating poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation, and discrimination against women, and placed them at the heart of the global agenda. World leaders have repeatedly confirmed their commitment to the goals, and to consolidating a global partnership that would improve the lives of poor people around
the world within the timespan of one generation. We have now passed the midpoint between the adoption of the goals and the target date of 2015. There has been progress, but in most parts of the world much more needs to be done. With respect to the eighth goal—to create a global
partnership for development—Member States have made concrete commitments focusing in particular on the areas of trade, official development assistance, external debt, essential medicines and technology. Such steps are important in their own right but would also provide critical support for attaining the other goals.

“TOWARDS A MORE INCLUSIVE SOCIETY” which is the theme for this year’s National Human
Development Report, captures not only the vision of this government, but also the objectives and targets of the UN’s
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It recognises also the agenda of the New Partnership for Africa’s
Development (NEPAD) including the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), to which Ghana was the first to
submit herself for review. The recommendations are being implemented.
Ghana’s plan for promoting inclusiveness has been incorporated in national economic development
programmes, such as the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS I) and the Growth and Poverty Reduction
Strategy (GPRS II). Government has also launched an ambitious Public Sector Reform Programme with a monitoring
and evaluation component, to improve efficiency in policy implementation and also to develop a new and positive
mindset for Public/Private Partnership for accelerated growth. The UNDP is among the key partners supporting these
programmes.

Since 1997 UNDP Ghana has been working with Government to prepare and disseminate the Human Development Report. The prime objective of the report is to offer guidance on policies and guidance required at different levels by different actors to keep development actions focused, cordinated and efficacous by presenting systematic account and assessment of social and economic development in the country from the sustainable Human Development perspective.

Since 1997 UNDP Ghana has been working with Government to prepare and disseminate the Human Development Report. The prime objective of the report is to offer guidance on policies and guidance required at different levels by different actors to keep development actions focused, cordinated and efficacous by presenting systematic account and assessment of social and economic development in the country from the sustainable Human Development perspective.

Since its creation in 1966, UNDP has been at the centre of the United Nations’ operational development system, working both at the grassroots level to help build national capacities for sustainable development, and as a leader in development thinking, as demonstrated by its flagship Human Development Reports and its contributions to critical issues such as global public goods and democratic governance. In many ways, it is this important nexus—connecting countries to
knowledge and ideas and working with them to strengthen the capacity needed to tackle development challenges—that is UNDP’s hallmark.
With the advent of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the last few years have seen UNDP scale up its activities in a major way.
UNDP is working at the conceptual level with a wide range of partners to advocate or
the policy and institutional changes needed to fight poverty more effectively and achieve the MDGs. From elections support in Liberia and Haiti, to recovery efforts after decades of conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), to helping countries deliver services to their citizens in countries with much stronger economies but huge social challenges such as Brazil and Indonesia, UNDP also works with countries in a very practical way to help build the institutional capacity needed to promote, support and accelerate human development and sustainable growth.