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250 million pound grant agreement signed, Ghana and the
UK
Accra, Sept 3, Ghanadot/GNA – Ghana and the
United Kingdom (UK) on Wednesday signed an agreement under
which the UK would deliver 250 million pounds grant to Ghana
between 2008 and 2010.
The grant formed part of the 10-year partnership arrangement
which resulted from discussions between President John
Agyekum Kufuor and the UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown during
the president’s recent visit to the UK.
Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Kwadwo Baah
Wiredu, MP signed for Ghana and Mr. Douglas Alexander, MP
and Secretary of State for International Development of the
UK signed for his country.
This was at the ongoing Third High Level Forum (HLF3) on Aid
Effectiveness in Accra.
Mr. Baah Wiredu noted that the 250 million pounds assistance
may take the form of financial aid to Ghana, high quality
technical cooperation for capacity development, support
through international organizations or civil society
organizations and other innovative forms of development
assistance.
“At least 95 per cent of this assistance will be directly
aligned to and in support of the government budget,” he
said.
The Minister said that was good news for Ghana as it meant
that 95 per cent of the amount would be untied aid and could
therefore be applied into sectors of the government’s own
choice without the usual inimical donor conditionalities.
Mr. Baah Wiredu acknowledged that the uniqueness of UK’s
assistance to Ghana was that it provided only grants with
multi-year disbursement, adding that, the 80 per cent of
such grants were channelled through the budget under the
multi donor budget support (MDBS) mechanism, which committed
donors to align aid flows to the Ghana Poverty Reduction
Strategy (GPRS).
“The UK championed the MDBS during its inception and showed
its commitment to it by providing Ghana with 110 million
pounds between 2003 and 2006 and an additional 120 million
pounds from 2006 to 2008,” he said.
Mr. Baah Wiredu noted that the UK was Ghana’s biggest
development partner in terms of volume and spread of
assistance across the various sectors of the economy, adding
that, the main thrust of the UK’s assistance to Ghana had
been poverty reduction and the achievement of the MDG’s,
which was in line with the principles of the Paris
Declaration on Aid Effectiveness.
He assured the UK that the government would continue to
pursue prudent macro-economic policies, ensure sound
financial management, increase transparency and public
accountability and provide good governance and respect for
human rights.
“I can also assure you of peaceful, free and fair elections
this year,” he said.
Mr. Alexander praised the government of Ghana for the
prudent management of the economic, saying that, that was
the attraction for increased aid from the UK to Ghana.
“We believe we have a credible development partner in the
present government and for that we will only keep increasing
our aid to Ghana,” he said.
On the question of why donors focused on sectors like
education and health, he said the rationale for that was
human capacity building and education and health were major
channels for achieving that purpose.
“However we believe that as we focus on those two areas, it
would free your own national resources, which could be
invested in the other equally important sectors,” he said.
He expressed the hope that the discovery of oil and gas in
Ghana would offer exciting prospects and bright future in
terms of opportunities and better living standards for the
people of Ghana.
GNA
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