Day: March 23, 2024

Akyeke’ a locally prepared Ivorian dish is creating lucrative business for some indigenous Ghanaian women in Sunyani, the Bono Regional capital.

‘Akyeke’ is an Ivorian native dialect, interpreted as a locally prepared cassava dish. ?

The Ghana News Agency (GNA) market survey reveals consumption of the Ghanaian-adopted local food is in high demand nowadays, thereby, fetching jobs for many women in the capital.

As the nation marks the Heritage Month, vendors in the locally prepared food told the GNA in an interview in Sunyani customers were mostly public sector workers, and commercial drivers.

Mostly, they preferred and opted for the local dish at lunch time.

During a round visit, the GNA noticed some of the vendors engaged in that food business, prepared the dish from the house, and sold take-away packs at lorry stations, and on table tops, while few others have also created joints for consumers to stay and enjoy.

The GNA chanced on several customers at a popular ‘Akyeke joint’ situated in the premises o
f the main Sunyani-Chiraa lorry station around 1200 hours.

Initially, Amina Yusif, the vendor was reluctant to speak to the media, however, she opened up, after some customers convinced her to do so.

She said her customers used to be drivers, artisanal workers, and market women, but now it remained the favorite of many public sector employees, who patronize the dish between 1100 hours and 1500 hours.

Yusif and the other vendors said they sold the diet between GHC5 and GHC10 depending on the preferred choice and ingredients of customers.

‘Some of my customers who work in the public sector often request reservations, others also order in their offices,’ Yusif stated.

At vendors noticed in the enclave of the Sunyani Central Business District (CBD), confirmed sales were very good and encouraging.

‘Akyeke is nutritious and highly economical. I spend less and consume more,’ a customer told the GNA, on condition of anonymity and added, ‘I take in a lot of water when I consume the food’.

Another customer, and
a commercial driver only known as Opoku said, ‘if you don’t go for Akyeke, then what else do you think you can survive with GHC10 when you come to work’.

Origin

The origin of the diet could be traced from the indigenes of Cote D’Ivoire and mostly common Sampa, a Ghana-Cote d’Ivoire border town in the Jaman North District of the Bono region.

In a brief background, Yusif said because Sampa was close to Côte d’Ivoire, she adopted and learned the preparation of the diet from some of her Ivorian friends years back, it had been business, she relocated from Sampa to Sunyani some years back.

Preparation

The diet is prepared from cassava dough, where the dough is boiled in hot water. The ingredients include grinded green pepper spiced with onion, oil, salt, and fish are added.

Initially, Yusif said people preferred consuming the diet with cabbage stew, but added, nowadays, most of her customers order vegetables, beans, eggs, and salad.

Some customers enjoy the diet with shito (hot pepper sauce), ripped plantain
, sauces, spring onions, carrots, and roasted groundnuts, she said, saying, that made the business lucrative too.

Nutritional value

Joyce Odei, a health professional told the GNA some of the ingredients such as groundnut, peas, pepper, onion, ginger, and beans, used for the preparation of the diet boost body immunity.

They also reduce the risk of heart diseases, cancers and help generate new cells in the body system and improve digestion.

These ingredients are also good for pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers, she added.

Challenges

Yusif, and the other vendors of the diet said though sales were good, the high cost of food and other items used for the preparation of the diet had slowed down the business.

She said the business could create more jobs for women and improve their socio-economic livelihoods if the high cost of oil, fish, cassava, charcoal, and Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) was brought under control.

That would enable women interested to do the business to afford, Yusif stated.

Source
: Ghana News Agency

The commemoration of International Women’s Day on March 8, 2024, saw national governments all across West Africa putting on record their newfound commitment to advancing gender equality by aligning with this year’s theme.

This year’s theme is: ‘Invest in Women: Accelerate Progress’.

In addition to policy statements of commitment, women’s ministries in the Sub-region commemorated the day by organising public-facing events for visibility and citizen buy-in.

In Ghana, the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection organised a stakeholder walk; in Nigeria, the Minister of Women Affairs distributed work materials to women in business; and in Burkina Faso, the Minister of Gender made a public commitment to organising training sessions on agricultural production for 650 internally displaced and vulnerable women across the country’s 13 regions.

While it is indeed urgent and important to invest in women to accelerate progress for gender equality, this strategy must be pursued along with a complementary one
that focuses on gender norms shifting by targeting male leaders of faith and culture.

This is especially so in Africa, where gender norms determine societal role assignment, and limits the life chances, social status, and social mobility of women and girls.

In this setting, male cultural and religious leaders often hold, uphold, and legitimise the replication of negative gender norms.

Their role, while critical for the preservation of cultural identity in the sub-region, also contributes to the underrepresentation and oftentimes exclusion of women from important sites of decision-making in the economy, society, and polity.

Without women holding visible leadership roles in such sectors, young women are left without role models and lack the inspiration to aspire.

How to shift the negative gender norms reinforced by male leaders of culture and faith, while at the same time acknowledging their leadership position in society, has emerged, as a key question for all those working for gender equality.

Many of t
hose asking this question view cultural and religious values as an encumbrance of gender equality and often see male leaders of faith and culture as part of, if not, the root cause of the problem.

In the West African context where gender roles are mainly shaped by culture and religious values, to brand culture as problematic and non-supportive of women and girls points to a failure to recognise women’s willful investment in culture and religion.

Such a view also fails to recognise that culture is ever-changing and that the mindsets and attitudes of cultural and religious leaders are also subject to influence and change.

The real question here seems to be less about culture as a hindrance to gender equality and more about the pace and nature of change that leaders of faith and culture can deliver on the long road to gender equality.

Consider the response of a faith leader when asked how religious leaders can contribute towards gender equality. He responded, simply – ‘We cannot work for gender equality.’

‘
But we can work for the protection of women and girls; we can support them to be educated so that their children are better trained; we will stand against traditional practices which endanger their health; and call for more respect for our women and girls’.

Taken together, this response is not a repudiation of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Five, Achieving Gender Equality and Empowering Women…, but an indication of the incremental steps that must be followed on the long road towards this goal, framed in a context where most patriarchal powerholders will engage on the issue but cede little ground.

The challenge for development-impact investors is one of how to tap into such hopeful openings for incremental change to shift negative gender norms within culture and religion.

For international development partners, the salience of the cultural and religious context of gender transformative programming cannot be minimised; it must be engaged.

To do so, however, requires a deepening of a partner-led appr
oach to programming.

It calls for listening and learning from authentically local partners, respecting context yet committing to accelerating change.

It also calls for enabling the engagement of implementing partners to be equipped to work in the semi-chartered space of incremental and respectful change.

This is a challenging space for most development impact funders to be in, as it leans on learning, and offers multiple possibilities for sustainability but may not deliver the classical indicators of gender equality.

The Ford Foundation in West Africa is committed to addressing gender-based violence through shifting social norms that tacitly enable it by supporting women’s rights organisations, as well as faith and culture leaders, government, and other stakeholders to lead efforts geared at popularising prevention as a response to gender-based violence.

One of Ford’s grantees working at the intersection of gender rights, culture, and religion in northern Nigeria is the Development Research and Projects
Centre (dRPC), a Nigerian non-profit organisation with 20 years of experience working for gender norms transformation in contexts of culture and faith.

The dRPC has learned important lessons about targeting, strategy, and programming in this field of work.

On targeting, the lesson learned here is that gender inclusion interventions should focus on both faith and cultural leaders who may be at different points along the journey of change.

Representatives of women faith-based organisations should also be included in interventions along with male cultural and faith leaders.

Gender transformative interventions are also more likely to be successful when designed to achieve realistic and incremental objectives.

Inclusion is a key strategy that should involve survivors of violence against women as interlocutors.

Leadership development is also an effective branding and programming approach when engaging cultural and faith leaders in gender equality interventions.

Some of the catalytic actions of male cultural
and faith leaders that could potentially shift negative gender norms include making public procurements; conducting advocacy to government, especially at the local level; adjudicating local level family dispute cases in the interest of women; and personally, modelling new ways of supporting women within the family.

As development partners and civil society organizations (CSOs) prepare to monitor 2024 commitments made for gender equality, it is imperative that they advocate for African governments to adopt a more complementary approach when investing in women.

CSOs across West Africa must prepare to hold government to account on commitments that directly benefit women with training, materials and finance while at the same time calling for investment in creating an enabling environment by shifting gender norms.

Shifting gender norms is an objective that is best achieved by meeting leaders of culture and faith where they are found while also supporting them to move along on their journey to gender equality.

(Dr Judith-Ann Walker is the Executive Director -development Research and Projects Centre (dRPC), and Dabesaki Mac-Ikemenjima is the Senior Programme Officer, Ford Foundation West Africa).

Source: Ghana News Agency

The Savanna Agricultural Research Institute of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR-SARI) has conducted specialised training sessions for smallholder farmers under the auspices of the Grow Further Bambara Groundnut Project to enhance Bambara groundnut production.

Farmers in the Fragra No.4 and Fragra No.6 communities alongside Kusawgu and Jiramoape communities, who are into bambara groundnut production, benefited from the training aimed at optimising yield and sustainability.

Led by Mr Edem Halolo and Madam Rashidatu Abdulai, who both have expertise in Biochar and Compost production and are Assistant Research Scientists at CSIR-SARI, the training, held in the communities, emphasised the adoption of innovative agricultural techniques to bolster Bambara nut yields.

Through practical demonstrations, farmers were equipped with the knowledge and skills to produce biochar from locally available farm waste materials offering a sustainable solution to soil enrichment.

Mr Halolo highlighted the
pivotal role of biochar in improving soil health and nutrient retention, which were crucial factors in achieving higher crop yields.

Complementing this approach, Madam Abdulai touched on the benefits of compost in enhancing soil fertility and crop productivity.

She emphasised the importance of integrating compost alongside conventional fertilizers to create a balanced and nutrient-rich soil environment conducive to Bambara nut cultivation.

Farmers were guided through compost preparation, empowering them to harness organic resources effectively for enhanced agricultural outcomes.

The training session, organised under the Grow Further Bambara Groundnut Project, aligned with the project’s overarching objectives of promoting food security, climate resilience, and income generation among smallholder farmers in northern Ghana.

The Project also seeks to unlock the full potential of indigenous crops like Bambara Groundnut through targeted interventions and capacity-building initiatives.

Through partnerships wit
h organisations like CSIR-SARI, Grow Further aims to revolutionise agricultural practices and uplift rural communities by harnessing the power of innovative technologies and sustainable farming methods.

The training session exemplified a collaborative effort towards realising these goals, with farmers poised to implement newfound knowledge and techniques to propel Bambara nut production to new heights.

Mr Alhassan Nuhu Jinbaani, an Agricultural Economist at CSIR-SARI, and the Principal Investigator of the Project, explained what informed the training of farmers on how to prepare biochar and compost.

He said a study conducted by CSIR-SARI, funded by Grow Further, revealed low yield levels of Bambara groundnut among farmers and poor soil health in the Bambara groundnut growing ecologies of Ghana.

He said, ‘This is despite the fact that organic materials are locally available, which can be used by farmers to produce both biochar and compost.’

He added that what was truly lacking were the skills and technica
l expertise among smallholder farmers to use these locally available organic materials to improve soil health, and consequently the yield of Bambara groundnut.

Mr Jinbaani explained that the CSIR-SARI and Grow Further Bambara Project was a three-year project, adding ‘As the project seeks to release improved varieties of Bambara groundnut, it will also build the technical competence of smallholder men and women Bambara groundnut producers and the youth.’

He was grateful to Grow Further, a US-based non-governmental organisation, for funding the project and for their continuous support.

He further expressed gratitude to the district directors of the Departments of Agriculture and agricultural extension officers and the farmers in the project intervention districts for their support and active participation in the project activities.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Intermittent fasting offers the tantalising promise that changing mealtimes, and not the meals, can be good for you. But what are the dos and don’ts of eating less frequently?

Intermittent fasting is championed by celebrities and chief executives alike for its weight loss and health benefits. Even Rishi Sunak, the British Prime Minister, has admitted to starting each week with a 36 hour long period of fasting. While there is promising evidence that fasting can help our bodies repair and perhaps extend our lifespans, it might not be the best approach for losing weight, and dietitians urge caution before cutting out meals.

Intermittent fasting is a type of time-restricted diet in which fasters leave a long gap between their last meal of one day and first of the next, compressing their meals into a shorter period during the day. Typically, fasters try to leave a gap of 16 hours without food and eat during an eight-hour window. Intermittent fasting is not the only type of time-restricted diet. Others like the 5
:2 diet (in which dieters eat a normal amount of food for five days before two days of eating only 25% of their usual calorie intake) focus more on the amount of food consumed, rather than the time between meals.

‘Time-restricted feeding is used as a weight loss tool, but it’s not my favourite approach,’ says Rachel Clarkson, founder of London-based consultancy The DNA Dietitian. ‘You reduce calories but you don’t learn the essential behaviour change around what you’re putting into your body.’

Clarkson says that without learning what a healthy diet looks like people gain weight again when they stop fasting. ‘If it means you are feeling starved and restricted then the next day you might over-eat.

So, intermittent fasting might not be the right approach for people seeking weight loss, but there might be other reasons to change your eating patterns. Fasting is linked to a process called autophagy, which is attracting a lot of interest for its potential health benefits.

Autophagy is the process by which the b
ody starts to recycle the structures inside its cells, including the nucleus, where DNA is stored, the mitochondria, which synthesise the chemical our cells use for energy, and lysosomes, which remove waste from our cells. In doing so, the cell can remove defunct structures, freeing up new raw materials from which new cellular structures can be built. Some of the new raw material might be used to make cell-protective proteins that further extend the lifespan of cells.

There is interest in whether autophagy can increase the lifespan of whole organisms, though so far this has only been replicated in animals

There is interest in whether autophagy can increase the lifespan of whole organisms, too – though so far this has only been replicated in animals, like 1mm-long nematode worms and mice, and not humans (inhibited autophagy has also been linked to early-onset ageing). Until there are longitudinal studies of human intermittent fasters, it is too soon to say that it will extend our lifespans.

But, other anima
l studies have linked autophagy to improvements in immune system memory. The fact that autophagy is essential to maintain cell health has also generated interest in its role in cancer suppression. There might be more reasons than increasing lifespan to take interest in autophagy.

For most of us, autophagy occurs in our sleep, but it is also brought on by exercise and starvation. Could controlled fasting help to trigger it?

Unlike calorie-restrictive diets (which have also been linked to longevity), the purpose of intermittent fasting is to increase the amount of time between the last meal of one day and the first of the next. (In theory, an intermittent faster could eat the same amount of calories as normal, though in practice Clarkson says most people reduce their intake slightly.) This could help to promote autophagy, but to understand how we should look at what happens to us after we eat.

‘When you stop eating at 7pm you will still be in the ‘fed state’ until 10pm because you will still be digesting nut
rients,’ says Clarkson. ‘Any carbohydrates in your diet will give you a nice supply of glucose, our premium source of fuel, for a few hours.’

The fed state is when your body uses glucose in your blood as its source of energy. Once this energy source is used up, the body switches into a catabolic state – usually around three hours after eating. In this phase, glycogen stored in the liver and muscles is broken down into glucose. When we have depleted the glycogen stores, the body switches from glucose to ketones, which are made in the liver from fatty acids. It’s at this point, a stage called ketosis, that autophagy is triggered.

‘We don’t know exactly when we shift from glucose to ketones,’ says Clarkson. ‘It depends on so many things – genetics, health, lifestyle. How much glycogen you have will be based on how much you have eaten and how much energy you have burned.’

the majority of people are sitting down and opening a packet of something else after dinner

– Rachel Clarkson

Someone who has a high-carb
diet might never move beyond the catabolic state as they will always have a reserve supply of glycogen. However, someone with a low-carb diet and who regularly exercises might move through it very quickly (the ‘keto diet’, in which you cut out almost all carbs to maintain low blood glucose levels and glycogen stores, works in the same way). ‘I would move away from intermittent fasting for fat loss, and if you want to adopt it, think about the health benefits,’ says Clarkson.

A recent, but an unpublished study that analsyed data from 20,000 adults in the US who were followed for up to 17 years has also suggested that intermittent fasting is not without its risks. People who limited their eating to within an eight hour time period each day were more likely to die from cardiovascular disease than those who ate across 12-16 hours, according to the analysis, which hasn’t been peer reviewed but was presented at a scientific conference organised by the American Heart Association in March 2024.

How to fast

‘To fas
t you have to downregulate the feeling of hunger,’ says Clarkson. Hunger is felt when ghrelin, a hormone released from our stomach, triggers the production of two other hormones, called NPY and AgRP, in the hypothalamus.

While these three hormones generate feelings of hunger, there are a multitude more that suppress it. Sometimes called the ‘satiety hormones’, one of the key ones is leptin which is released from fat cells to suppress the production of ghrelin – basically telling the body ‘there is fat here that you can burn’.

Ghrelin is sometimes called the short-term hunger response because it is released when the stomach is empty and there is less pressure on the stomach wall. It can be overridden to a certain extent by drinking water. Leptin meanwhile works over the long term.

‘Our hunger hormones are regulated by many things, genetics being one of them,’ says Clarkson. ‘But thinking about the nerves that are attached to our stomach and digestive tract – if your stomach is not distended your body will t
hink it is hungry.’ She adds that staying hydrated can help with the early feelings of hunger until your body has adjusted. ‘The first couple of weeks will be tough, but you get used to it.’

For most people, ketosis occurs 12-24 hours after eating, so if you have your evening meal between 6pm and 8.30pm, the fed state would end between 9pm and 11.30pm and ketosis and autophagy might occur by 6am to 8:30am the following morning. ‘But the majority of people are sitting down and opening a packet of something else after dinner,’ says Clarkson. ‘Snacking or sugary drinks and beer extend the fed state for three hours. If you finish snacking at 9.30pm-10pm, the fed state is being taken to 1am-3am,’ she says. This might mean ketosis never occurs before you next have a meal.

‘If you can make the informed decision of eating the evening meal an hour earlier and not snacking, you may be getting into that ketosis state by morning, versus someone who is having the high-carb evening meal and snacking, waking up at 6am and
never getting into that state,’ she says. Clarkson suggests starting by eating earlier on a Sunday evening, or having breakfast an hour later and starting from there, building up from one or two days each week.

With a careful approach, intermittent fasting might help your body to perform its own repairs and recoveries. Autophagy appears to decline with age, so giving yourself a boost later in life might be useful. But be aware that it might not be the right strategy for weight loss, and there is no replacement for a balanced diet.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Three children service teachers of the Kekeli Congregation of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, Ghana, at SSNIT Flats, Ho were on Friday honoured for their dedicated and meritorious service to the Church.

They are Mr. Godwin Eli Edze, Mrs. Rosemary Atsiago and Presbyter Mrs. Elizabeth Baniba Gbande.

The three, who were teaching at the children service for the past five years, were each presented with a citation.

Reverend Gideon Dabi, Chaplain of Mawuko Senior High School, Ho, presenting the citations, appealed to the recipients not to relent on their efforts in imbibing the Presbyterian moral and spiritual values in the children.

He noted that it was heartwarming when people were appreciated for their services.

Rev. Dabi entreated members of the congregation to emulate the shinning example of the three.

Rev. Philip Atsiago, SSNIT Flats District Pastor of the church, praised the three for putting their time and resources at the disposal of the Church.

‘The work of the Children service teacher is with
out monetary reward but you volunteered yourself for the past five years, God richly bless you,’ he said.

Rev. Atsiago noted that ‘the children service is the watershed of the church which needs not be toyed with.’

He stated that the congregation would continue to provide the needed logistics for the children service to make it attractive to the children.

Mr. Edze on behalf of his colleagues thanked the church for appreciating ‘our little efforts’ and pledged that it would ginger them to do more.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) constitutes a critical sector in the national quest for sustainable development.

The sector, however, remains threatened by the brutish impact of climate change, especially as it relates to water and its complex interactions with sanitation and hygiene services.

The challenge of climate change for the WASH sector has become increasingly evident as many communities across the country continue to experience the discomfort of changing climate conditions and its consequential impact on water resources.

The continuing manifestation of climate change impacts and its negative influences on WASH services provision have, therefore, emerged as a critical policy concern for urgent intervention action.

This is even more so because as Ghana continues to roll out key climate change mitigation and adaptation policies, water remains a central concern and has rightly been labelled as a key climate-sensitive sector.

While the water sector has attracted the needed policy attention, that
level of attention is yet to be given to the implication of water (availability or not) to the efficient and effective deployment of WASH services across Ghana.

This is against the backdrop of the existence of a ministry responsible for water resources and sanitation, and the fact that there has been some mention of WASH in some policy documents.

These mentions, however, are only made in passing, as subtexts, for the most part, to confirm the seeming lack of attention to the WASH sector as a critical policy concern.

WASH and National Climate Adaptation Planning (NAP)

Ghana is currently involved in National Adaptation Planning (NAP), a major policy commitment to the international climate action agenda.

As part of the NAP processes, the Government is using various approaches to develop a national plan to guide adaptation needs in key sectors and in diverse regions across the country.

Even though the NAP process is being implemented at the national level, it also has a special focus on subnational govern a
nce structures, which aims at ensuring that municipal and district assemblies across the country develop the requisite capacities to lead the development of district-specific adaptation plans.

The NAP process is also expected to develop sector-specific adaptation plans. These sectors are carefully chosen as prioritised sectors based on their critical importance to the national economy, contribution to the achievements of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and their levels of exposure and vulnerabilities to climate change impacts.

Water, undoubtedly, is one such sector in the plan with its inclusion affirming its place and value to the national economy and sustainable development processes.

A key component of the NAP process is the need to conduct climate risk and vulnerability assessments in all districts and in all the identified key sectors.

And, indeed, any effective adaptation planning process will have to be anchored on rigorous climate risk and vulnerability assessments.

The good news is tha
t the current NAP process is doing all these and doing them right to create an inclusive and well-considered adaptation plan to guide resilience and adaptive capacity building across the country.

What is missing, however, is the lack of focus on the inextricable linkage that exists between water, sanitation, hygiene and climate.

WASH, as a sector, is not centralised as part of the current adaptation planning processes even though climate impacts on water have attracted significant attention.

Such an omission is worrying even though it is not entirely new nor surprising; it only goes to affirm how issues of WASH are treated largely as afterthoughts and given lowly treatments in policy considerations.

It is also not surprising because not many understand the climate change phenomenon to appreciate the complex manifestation of impacts through water and what that means for WASH services provision.

Integrating WASH Considerations in Climate Policies in Ghana

The current policy environment and the goodwill to
create an all-inclusive climate adaptation plan for the country possibly presents an opportunity for proactive consideration and integration of WASH related issues in policy decisions.

Thankfully, the NAP process is still ongoing and has every opportunity to centralise issues of WASH in the process.

This, as has been indicated, should involve the conduct of water, sanitation and hygiene climate risk assessments in all the districts to inform the development of district-specific climate-resilient WASH adaptation plans.

It is interesting to note that WaterAid Ghana, as a leading water, sanitation and hygiene advocate in Ghana, has even before the NAP process independently initiated climate risk and vulnerability assessments in the water sector in their operational regions in Ghana.

This is to facilitate understanding of current and future risk and vulnerabilities and what that means for WASH services provision. Such an initiative is not only encouraging but also instructive.

The dependency of the WASH sect
or on water resources and the centrality of related services makes it critically imperative that such proactive actions as demonstrated by WaterAid Ghana become status quo practice to inform policy decisions on water, sanitation and hygiene.

While the NAP is only one of such policies, there is also the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), which serve as one major policy avenue that highlights Ghana’s climate action efforts and how that contributes to internationally agreed ambitions.

If for nothing at all, the NDCs, NAPS, and Ghana’s different climate change and sustainable development policies and strategies must be seen to be projecting the importance of WASH as a critical and climate-sensitive sector, which requires an enabling and proactive policy environment to support service provision.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Award -Winning reggae and dancehall artist, popularly known as ‘Stonebwoy’ would perform during this year’s Vodza Ecotourism Initiative and Easter regatta entertainment show at Vodza in the Keta Municipality of the Volta Region.

This year’s edition of the annual event, which was initiated by the Vodza Ecotourism group, was aimed at highlighting and promoting ecotourism among others in the area.

Professor Audrey Gadzekpo, Founding member of the Vodza Ecotourism initiative, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, stated that an entertainment show dubbed ‘Woezor Night’ would take place on Friday, March 29 at Villa Amore Beach resort at Vodza.

‘Dancehall and reggae artist, Stonebwoy is expected to grace this year’s Vodza ecotourism and Easter entertainment show at Vodza on Saturday, March 30 during the Canoe jam show at Keta Emancipation Beach resort,’ she stated.

Professor Gadzekpo, a media practitioner and the Dean of the School of Information and Communications Studies at the University of Ghana, who i
s also a native of Vodza, stated that there would be a regatta and ‘Midunu’ food fair at Vodza regatta ground and Lagoon Beach Hotel respectively.

She further revealed that a thanksgiving service would be held at the Saint Joseph Catholic Church at Vodza on Sunday, March 31.

‘We are expecting a good Vodza ecotourism and Easter regatta this year to achieve a lot for development.’

She urged all to support the leaders and the organisers of the events for a remarkable experience.

Meanwhile, many dignitaries including heads of institutions, and natives of Vodza among others would be expected to witness this year’s celebrations.

Source: Ghana News Agency

The third edition of the Blue Economy Conference (BEC2024) is scheduled for July 4-5 at the Julius Nyerere International Convention Centre in Tanzania.

Organized by the Dar es Salaam Maritime Institute (DMI), Tanzania in collaboration with the Regional Maritime University (RMU) will be on the theme, ‘Navigating the Future: Integrating Maritime Safety and Security, Climate Change Actions and Technological Advancements for Blue Economy.’

A statement issued in Accra by the University said the conference was aimed at bringing together international stakeholders, focusing on promoting the blue economy to lead development across the continent.

The blue economy every year, has an estimated turnover of between US$3.6 billion, which includes employment, ecosystem services provided by the ocean and cultural services.

It is also estimated that fisheries and aquaculture contribute US$100 billion per year and about 260 million jobs to the global economy, according to the United Nations (UN) Department of Economic and
Social Affairs (DESA) report.

It said with the huge potential of the blue economy, Africa through the conference, was looking forward to developing the maritime sector to tap into its benefits for socio-economic growth.

The statement said the conference also aimed at establishing a platform for capacity building and networking among stakeholders, fostering the blue economy in aline with maritime safety and security, climate change considerations and technological advancements as outlined in the relevant Sustainable Development Goals.

The conference will tackle other areas including sustainable exploitation and utilisation of blue economy resources, ship seaworthiness and on-board-ship competency challenges, business models for the blue economy, women in the maritime sector, fishing industry and climate action policy and environmental protection.

It said there would be discussions on Artificial Intelligence in maritime practices and the blue economy, renewable energy solutions for maritime transportation,
information systems in maritime education and training and logistics.

Others are shipping and supply chains for the blue economy, climate-responsive maritime practices and coastal management, blue economy governance, law, and policy as well as coastal and marine tourism development.

Mr David Mwakiposa Kihenzile, Deputy Minister for Transport, Tanzania will be the keynote Speaker for the event together with speakers including Dr Paul Ikongshul Adalikwu, the Secretary-General, Maritime Organisation of West and Central Africa (MOWCA), Dr Kofi Mbia, Maritime Law and Management Consultant, Madam Nancy Karigithu, Special Advisor for Maritime and Blue Economy, Mr Pa Ousman Jarju, Executive Director, Sierra Leone Maritime Authority Paul Sobba Massaquoi and Climate Specialist.

The DMI had held the Blue Economy Conference for the past two years and is now collaborating with the RMU to hold the third edition this year, following a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the two giants in maritime education and trai
ning in February.

The MoU covers areas of research and publication, staff capacity building, organisation of conferences and seminars and workshops among others, hence the collaboration to hold this year’s conference.

Dr Jethro W. Brooks Jr, the Acting Vice-Chancellor of the RMU, speaking ahead of the conference said both institutions had committed to transforming economies across Africa by providing quality training and education that would ensure that young people were equipped and positioned to drive the maritime sector.

‘We look forward for an insightful conference that would support the transformation of the African continent through the maritime industry,’ he said.

Source: Ghana News Agency