“Recent developments in the fields of communications and information technology are indeed revolutionary in nature. Information and knowledge are expanding in quantity and accessibility. In many fields future decision-makers will be presented with unprecedented new tools for development. In such fields as agriculture, health, education, human resources and environmental management, or transport and business development, the consequences could be really quite revolutionary. Communications and information technology have enormous potential, especially for developing countries, and in furthering sustainable development.”
Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan
Mr. Annan's views could not be any far from the truth since ICT has contributed immensely to economic growth experienced in countries like India and Malaysia. The same however cannot be said about Ghana and Africa as a whole though there has been several programmes and initiatives to ensure this economic development. If you ask me, the approach to tackling the challenge in itself is wrong. A lot of effort and investments go into the formulation of these policies only to be left on shelves to gather dust. The will to implement has always been the bane of Ghana.
I do not see why a country like Ghana, with very smart and hardworking people cannot take advantage of software outsourcing from the USA and Europe and contribute to the innovations of the world. Our over reliance on cocoa and other natural resources have not helped us in this information age and it is time we thought out strategies to utilize the greatest resource we have (the human capital) to develop our economy. India's software exports grew from US$100m in 1990 to US$5bn in 2000. Imagine what even US$1bn from software exports would do for our economy (considering we had to sell GT for US$900m to augment our budget).
What we need to do as a nation, would be to modernize our educational system, we need total reforms from the nursery level to the university level and FCUBE should not be just lip service. Whoever wins the elections in December, should make it a top priority to ensure that we improve the literacy numbers in the country. I also think we need to focus more on science and technology as well as R&D (Research and Development) both in the private sector and academia.
I believe the fastest way Ghana can reduce poverty and attain middle income status would be to educate as many innovative and forward-looking human capital as possible, to transform the country into a knowledge based one. India has done it, so has the 'Asian Tigers', we can also do it. Government would need to make the attainment of a knowledge based society, a key part in its poverty reduction strategy. There are several initiatives the Government can adopt to make this a reality and we can also learn alot from those who have succeeded in doing it.
