Ghana A Time To Heal Renew The Nation

In this thought provoking book the author takes a critical retrospective glance at the political development of Ghana from its colonial past to the attainment of her sovereignty, and highlights the insidious fundamental flaws in the governance of the new nation. He unequivocally asserts that the creation of a dysfunctional totalitarian governmental system, where a cadre of unseasoned politicians systematically arrogated all power to themselves, and zealously prosecuted their political adversaries into oblivion, constituted the most fatal fundamental flaw in the governance of the nation. He points out that the militarys delusional belief in their self-appointed messianic role of liberating and redeeming Ghana from the odious dictatorship imposed on the people opened up the nation to the Pandoras box of bureaucratic ineptitude, gross power abuses, poorly conceived, and haphazardly implemented programs which precipitated political instability, stagnation, and decay of the institutions of state leading to the exodus of Ghanaians abroad. The dominant theme that permeates throughout the book revolves around the prevalence of the underlying institutional malaise inherited from colonialpolitical structureswhich concentrate too much raw political powers in the hands of the presidency. This accumulation of near absolute power elevates our presidents to the status of benevolent dictators, and sotheir policies go virtually unchallenged. This lack of checks and balances in our political system enabled the colonialists to totally exploit our people, andwhen our Ghanaian leaders governed our new nation in this same odious system they got the opportunity, like the colonial masters, to exploit and arrogate power to themselves, while utilizing the legal system as a weapon to harass their political opponents and silenced them. The author argues that this incompatibility of the colonial system with the political development of modern Ghana is the root cause of our political polarization, endemic instability and pervasive poverty.

Can anybody tell us why profound poverty continues to plague our nation of barely 25 million people in this modern era of globalization in 2012? Why do you think the vast majority of our beloved people live on less than a dollar a day and struggle from cradle to grave living in near squalor, and eking out near subsistence existence? As yourself why is it that in the midst of this profound abject poverty less than ten percent of our fellow countrymen and women live in opulence and wallow in untold riches with their mansions encased with six-foot walls, seek medical attention in luxurious medical facilities abroad? Are the vast majority of our people in poverty ignorant and stupid, while the few wealthy ones are perceived as more intelligent and wiser than all of us?

This book tests many of the assumptions, hypotheses, and conclusions connected with the presumed role of civil society organizations in the democratization of African countries. Taking a comparative approach, it looks at countries that have successfully democratized, those that are stuck between progress and regression, those that have regressed into dictatorship, and those that are currently in transitional flux and evaluates what role, if any, civil society has played in each instance. The countries discussed—South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Egypt and Tunisia—represent a diverse set of social and political circumstances and different levels of democratic achievement, providing a rich set of case studies. Each sample state also offers an internal comparison, as each has historically experienced different stages of democratization. Along the course of each case study, the book also considers the effect that other traditionally studied factors, such as culture, colonization, economic development and foreign aid, may have had on individual attempts at democratization. The first extensive work on civil society and democratization in Africa, the book adds new insights to the applicability of democratization theory in a non-Western context, both filling a gap in and adding to the existing universal scholarship. This book will be useful for scholars of political science, economics, sociology and African studies, as well as human rights activists and policy makers in the relevant geographical areas.

Quality of life (QoL) is a broad concept that has many definitions and meanings depending on the context under consideration. It can be perceived as the overall enjoyment of life, and a multidimensional concept which emphasizes the self-perceptions of an individual’s current state of mind, which is affected in a complex way by the person’s physical health, psychological state, personal beliefs, social relationships, and their relationship to salient features of their environment. On the other hand, demographic data suggests an increased need for workers worldwide and a rapid aging trend in the active workforce as well as in general. This trend of workforce deficit and population aging will be even more prominent in the future. Therefore, in order to have and sustain a healthy, motivated, and productive workforce, but also healthy, independent, and active elderly adults, one must improve their QoL, and vice versa. Improving QoL will improve general public health, and in turn create communities who can contribute in diverse and positive ways to both promote and sustain health for future generations.

The Africa Renewal magazine examines the many issues that confront the people of Africa, its leaders and its international partners: sustainable development goals, economic reform, debt, education, health, women's empowerment, conflict and civil strife, democratization, investment, trade, regional integration and many other topics. It tracks policy debates. It provides expert analysis and on-the-spot reporting to show how those policies affect people on the ground. And, it highlights the views of policy-makers, non-governmental leaders and others actively involved in efforts to transform Africa and improve its prospects in the world today. The magazine also reports on and examines the many different aspects of the United Nations’ involvement in Africa, especially within the framework of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD).

This discussion paper brings together evidence and experience from around the world focusing on making health systems more gender responsive. There is a need to examine the various barriers as well as opportunities in order to make health systems work better for women, which has been a special concern for several decades now, by using a gender equality and health equity perspective. The paper uses a framework that combines WHO's six building blocks for health systems and the primary health care reforms propounded in the World Health Report 2008 on primary health care. Furthermore, the paper provides examples of what has worked and how, and ends with an agenda for action to strengthen the work of policy-makers, their advisers and development partners as well as practitioners as they seek to integrate gender equality perspectives into health systems strengthening, including primary health care (PHC) reforms.

News footage of disease in Africa is a familiar sight. Yet these outbreaks are often presented out of context, with no reference to the conditions that have triggered them. MISTRA’s new book, Epidemics and the Health of African Nations, aims to redress that. Researchers and practitioners from within the continent explore why Africa is so vulnerable to disease, and show how this vulnerability is closely linked to political and economic factors. They demonstrate how these same factors determine the way epidemics are treated. Authors extract lessons from case studies in different parts of Africa; challenge conventional frameworks about disease to argue for a ‘syndemics’ approach that takes into account the interrelationship between disease and political and socio-economic contexts; explore challenges of Africa’s future. They argue that a well-functioning health system is at the core of a country’s capacity to counter an epidemic. This volume brings African experts together to probe possible solutions to the continent’s heavy burden of disease. The insights offered will be helpful in devising policy for the control of disease and the combatting of epidemics in Africa.

This book investigates the history of women’s reproductive health in Ghana, arguing that between the 1920s and 1980s, it was largely driven by discourses of development and population control rather than a concern for women’s health or rights. Between the 1920s and 1980s, the choices that Ghanaian women made regarding their reproductive health were defined by development policy and practice. Spanning the colonial and immediate postcolonial periods, this book demonstrates that whilst the substance of development discourse shifted over time, principles of development continued to be used to impact and legitimise reproductive health policy and practices well after independence. The book explores Ghana’s pluralist health system, the introduction of maternal and child welfare, the dominance of the Red Cross in Ghana’s maternal and child health landscape, nationalist pronatalism and global population activism. In order to understand how global iterations of development and health policy impacted ordinary lives in Ghana, the author uses evidence from multiple ‘levels,’ including private papers, national archives and records of international and transnational organisations. Providing balanced archival perspectives, the book includes extensive oral history interviews carried out with both rural Ghanaian women and traditional birth attendants, as well as with midwives, doctors and family planning fieldworkers. This book will have an important impact on a number of historical fields including Ghanaian history, global health history, global histories of population and family planning and histories of development. It will be of interest to researchers and students in the history of public health, development, Africa, Ghana and gender.