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| India proves South-South concept to Ghana and Africa |
3/9/2007 |
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Accra, March 8, GNA - Professor Amos Anyimadu, Research Fellow in Security and Dialogue, on Thursday lauded India for giving ample demonstration to Ghana and Africa in the South-South concept of co-operation.
Giving a lecture in New Delhi on Ghana at fifty, India at sixty: The Challenge of the Democratic Developmental State, Prof Anyimadu said, "It is refreshing that the evolution of Ghana-India relations clearly points to a practical approach to the challenge of the Democratic Development State.
A copy of the lecture the GNA obtained said, "India''s support to Ghanaian development today is distinguished not only by its surprising large size but also its strategic quality of having a clear potential to fundamentally uplift our march to democracy and development." He said, "For Africa as a whole, India has extended more than one billion dollars worth of technical assistance."
He said, he was "particularly taken by the promising Pan-African e-Network Project recently begun by India for Africa. The Project envisages connecting the 53 African Union countries by satellite and fibre optic network, and once completed, it would provide tele-education and tele-medicine facilities from India to regional centres in Africa and also individually to each of the member countries. "It would also provide effective communication and connectivity to all the AU countries including voice and video conferencing facilities among the Heads of States."
Prof Anyimadu said that was "an excellent example of South-South cooperation for meeting the challenges of the new Knowledge Economy in our shrinking world."
He said Ghana was a member of India''s Team-9 initiative and it was under that arrangement that Ghana had received concessional credit for ongoing Presidential Complex Project and the India-Ghana Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in Information and Communication Technology was established with $2 million dollars assistance from India. This facility has fast become a crucial component of the digital future in Ghana.
"India''s fascinating emergence as a telematics giant is powerful instruction to us in Ghana", he said.
He said with those achievements and linkages between the two countries, "we shall much more certainly attack the challenge of the democratic development state with great Indo-Ghanaian confidence.
Prof. Anyimadu said drawing a picture of the intertwined journeys from colonialism to wealth, dignity and justice in the best of worlds, Ghana at fifty and India at sixty encapsulated two deeply related tales of journeys out of the so called Third World. Indian''s independence directly shaped Ghanaian independence and that Kwame Nkrumah was clear about the importance of the Indian experience to the struggle for freedom in Ghana.
Prof Anyimadu quoted from the autobiography of Nkrumah in which he wrote: "After months of studying Gandhi''s policies and watching the effect it had, I began to see that, when backed by a strong political organisation, it could be the solution to the colonial problem". He said, "The Nkrumah-Gandhi axis was driven much more deeply. I would suggest that it is not simply incidental that Gandhi''s favourite hymn was "Lead Kindly Light" and that this also became Nkrumah''s, and his party''s, favourite.
"It is not simply coincidental that Kwame Nkrumah''s most famous aphorism "Seek ye first the Political Kingdom and all things shall be added unto you", is attributable not simply directly to the Christian scripture but, perhaps more directly, to Gandhi''s fundamental position that: "You cannot serve God and Mammon is an economic truth of the highest value. We have to make our choice. Western nations are groaning under the monster-god of materialism. Their moral growth has become stunted ... Under the British aegis we have learnt much, but it is my firm belief that, if we are not careful, we shall introduce all the vices that she has been prey to owing to the disease of materialism ... Let us first seek the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and the irrevocable promise is that everything will be added unto us. These are real economics".
Prof Anyimadu said the personal electricity between Nkrumah and Nehru found expression in the precept of Positive Neutrality and organizationally in the Non Aligned Movement. The days of Nkrumah and Nehru were charged with visionary politics.
He said, "Today, our challenges appear much more mundane. India confidently embraces Globalisation. Ghana struggles to humanize Globalization for basic survival."
The Economist newspaper recently said the Indian economy was overheating with near ten per cent growth. This, we are told, presents its own problems which the politics of your recent budget, I understand, seeks to address.
In Ghana we seek all growth without the luxury of fine qualification. A thoughtful and balanced piece written by Michelle Faul of the Associated Press from Accra, and carried by many newspapers around the world yesterday, notes that Ghana''s "Golden Jubilee on Tuesday is prompting some sober reflection on why Africa has failed to translate its dreams, and its bounty of mineral and agricultural resources, into wealth".
The Economist newspaper''s online presence opines that Ghana "is an example of much that has gone wrong, and then right, in Africa". On the homepage of the World Bank web pages yesterday, Mats Karlsson, the agreeable Swedish Country Director of the Bank in Ghana, tries hard to be totally optimistic and reports that:
The last five years brought higher economic growth (6.2 percent in 2006), after a steady two decades of moderate 4 percent growth. Inflation is lower (10 percent, down from 40), and so are interest rates (15 percent, down from 30), and poverty (33.4 percent in 2005, down from 39.5 percent in 2000, and 51.7 percent in 1990. Prof Anyimadu said, "the statistics may tell different stories but it may be clear that from the perspective of an Asian tiger it would seem that the African lion is meek indeed." 8 March 07Source:
GNA
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