Sustained Efforts Will Make Africa Better Prepared to Fight the Next Pandemic - Dr. John Nkengasong at the 2022 AFGML
The University of Ghana has held the 40th Aggrey-Fraser-Guggisberg Memorial Lecture (AFGML) series on March 18, 2022 at the Great Hall. Dr. John Nkengasong, Director of Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention delivered the lecture on the theme “Fighting the COVID-19 Pandemic: Africa at a Crossroad?”
ISSER To Launch New Flagship Research Initiative On Policies & Incentives to Deepen Digital Finance Retail Distribution Networks In LMICs
The Institute of Statistical Social and Economic Research (ISSER) at the University of Ghana, with the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is set to launch a new research initiative on policies and incentives to deepen digital finance retail distribution networks in low-and-middle-income countries (LMICs).
2022 Turmoil: How Ghana Is Vulnerable, and What Can Be Done
Ghana must speed up renewable energy programs to further diversify its energy mix, improve energy security, and urban mobility initiatives to improve efficiency. This will help reduce fiscal shocks due to expensive oil product imports for power generation and transportation.
What It Would Take For More Ghanaians to Adopt Mobile Payment Systems
Unlike the developed countries, Ghana doesn’t have a well-developed infrastructure for the use of e-cards (debit or credit cards) for business transactions. So, consumers and businesses mostly rely on cash.
This exposes consumers to risks, including health and theft as a result of having to carry physical cash. There is the need therefore to consider other safer methods of making and receiving payments. Mobile payments are one option.
As Rising Seas Destroy Ghana’s Coastal Communities, Researchers Warn Against A Seawall-only Solution
Research indicates the ocean claims up to 2 meters of the country’s coastline each year. Addo said that while erosion is a natural phenomenon to a certain extent, human-caused global warming is increasing it to unprecedented levels.
Prof. Emmanuel Ohene Afoakwa
Our focus is to be a student-centered university with academic freedom, innovation, and integrity. We want to evolve as an ICT institution, taking into consideration our new mandate.
We are trying to restructure our university by following these steps. Recreate the institution as a collegiate university which will replace the faculty system. We will have the College of Computing Systems and Technology, College of Communication Engineering, and the College of Business.
Ing. Michael Krakue
We have to step up efforts as a country to ensure that more engineers are coming through. At the moment, we have about 80 per cent of Ghanaian engineers opting to ply their trade abroad because they find opportunities limited here. Governments all over the continent need to develop a strategic plan to ensure we churn out more engineers. Support systems must be in place so that we don’t lose our top talent.
Our authorities can put in place policies that prioritise local engineers when it comes to the award of projects. Such policies would excite students and lead to the emergence of a class of highly competent local engineers. Lucrative opportunities for local practitioners along with a keen quality check from the National Institute of Engineers can only lead to a crop of high-quality engineers.
Ghana’s Bui Dam raises concerns – again – about hydro power projects
In the early years of African independence, hydroelectricity offered the promise of modernity and development. For then President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, the Akosombo Dam in Ghana (completed in 1965), in conjunction with the Aswan High Dam in Egypt (completed in 1970), would lead to the electrification of the continent. And it would help transform Ghana’s economy and boost development.
But by the 1970s and 1980s, the negative social and environmental consequences of large-scale dams were becoming more obvious. These crystallised around the construction of the Sardar Sarovar Dam in the Indian state of Gujarat, which displaced over 200,000 people.
The pendulum began to swing away from support to opposition. This stimulated the creation of both local opponents of dam building and transnational anti-dam organisations. The most important became International Rivers, whose campaign director, Patrick McCully, attacked dams on a range of environmental and social grounds.
Renewable Energy Projects In Rural Ghana Have Some Built-in Limitations
Renewable energy technologies like solar lanterns, solar panels and biogas digesters offer the prospect of affordable power in remote communities. For the last 30 years, international organisations have been involved in projects to make these technologies available to users in African countries. Mainly this has been done free of charge and has included efforts to build local capacity and reform policy.
But despite these efforts, internationally funded renewable energy projects have often failed after they withdrew their support.
Ghana’s Land Acquisition Process Generates Conflict. Blockchain Offers A Solution
Ghana’s current system of land administration generates a lot of conflicts for a number of reasons.
Firstly, under Ghana’s customary land tenure system, multiple people can hold interest in the same land. This means that they cannot unilaterally sell or register it without the knowledge of the other parties or claimants. However, because the current land administration system is opaque and weakly coordinated, people are able to do that.
