The Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, is scheduled to open a multi-day conference in Accra on Thursday at which eminent economists from Ghana and abroad will prioritize the smartest solutions to the country’s challenges.
The conference, which is organised by the Ghana Priorities project is a collaboration between the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) and the award-winning think tank, Copenhagen Consensus.
Over the past 18 months, a reference group drawn from the public sector, private sector, civil society organizations, academia, the media, identifiable groups and individuals identified 80 of the most promising solutions for Ghana.
28 teams of Ghanaian, regional and international economists researched the costs and benefits of each.
The results of their research will be presented to a panel of eminent economists who will rank all the interventions per their value for money.
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The panel comprises Mr. Ken Ofori-Atta, Minister of Finance, Prof. George Gyan-Baffour, Minister of Planning, former Finance Minister Prof. Kwesi Botchwey, Prof. Augustin Fosu from the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER), among others.
Also on the panel are Prof. Ernest Aryeetey, Secretary-General of the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA), Prof. Eugenia Amporfu from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), and Prof. Finn Kydland, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences.
The facilitator of the work of the panel would be Dr. Bjorn Lomborg, President of Copenhagen Consensus, named by TIME Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Dr. Kodjo Esseim Mensah-Abrampa, Director General of the NDPC believes that the calibre of persons on the panel would offer great insight.
“It is a great honour to have Mr Ofori-Atta, Prof. Gyan-Baffour, Prof. Botchwey, Prof. Fosu, Prof. Aryeetey, Prof. Amporfu and Prof. Kydland studying the economic, social and environmental impact of policies to help inform the debate on priorities for a prosperous future. The results of their labours can help focus attention on the smartest policies for the country that do the most good for every Ghana cedi spent,” he said
The Eminent Panel’s prioritized list of the most promising policy pursuits will be presented on Monday, 10 August.
