The Chief Ghana S Rich Asset Heritage And Alternative Source Of Community Development

The book, the Chief addresses an alternative source of authority that can be harnessed to help with community development. It is one of the nation's rich assets and heritage. He is the traditional ruler called the Chief or ‘Nana’. He has been in the organization of communal labour, promotion of socio-economic development and involved in maintaining peace and order and development of his area since pre-colonial times. The Chieftaincy institution is recognized and accorded its autonomy in the Constitution of Ghana. The government may avoid gross infrastructural deficits in the local communities if he works in collaboration with the Chiefs. I believe also that every society has resources to better the lives of its people. The book is written around the background of the Akan Chieftaincy system, its legal position, the chief’s profile – criteria of his selection; his eleven golden responsibilities to influence the community; the community assets, twelve steps of ways to start community projects and ends up with a controversy among the Christendom, ‘Should a Christian become a Chief?’ The masterpiece is a ‘wake up cry’ to inform, educate, instruct, celebrate, and inspire the Chief and his Traditional Council of what he urgently needs to deal with. The Chieftaincy system is an ancient institution and is still important and relevant. It is inappropriate to be seen as symbolic and ceremonial. It is time for the Chief to take stock of the power and authority vested in him and the influence he has. He need not be like a queen waiting on a king but to be like a queen busy with her kingdom until her king arrives. Why live when you can rule.

Chieftaincy is one of the most enduring traditional institutions in Ghana, which has displayed remarkable resilience from pre-colonial through colonial to postcolonial times. In the past, the role of a chief was to lead his people in war to defend, protect and extend their territories. The modern role is to combat poverty and other social ills: illiteracy, ignorance, environmental degradation, and the depletion of resources. Nowadays, chiefs are under pressure to achieve good governance in their traditional areas. They are challenged to integrate tradition and modernity, a process about which there is considerable debate. They carry out their duties in an increasingly globalised world where the accent is on democracy, human rights, health delivery, employment, human development and regional integration. Their ability to come to terms with these challenges will provide an indication of their relevance and the relevance of the institution to Ghana?s long-term development. This massive volume is arguably the most comprehensive and detailed scholarly study of the institution of chieftaincy to appear on the subject to date. The subjects and approaches are wide- ranging, and cover most aspects of the institution in every geographical area in Ghana. Some thirty contributors from the humanities and social sciences tell the story of chieftaincy past and present from a multitude of perspectives: anthropological, historical, economic, sociological, gender, literary, religious and philosophical.

The Sami have lived for time immemorial in an area that today extends across the Kola Peninsula in Russia, northern Finland, northern Norway's coast and inland, and the northern half of Sweden. The Sami play an important role in these northern economies thanks to their use of land, their involvement in reindeer husbandry, agriculture/farming and food production, and connection with the region's tourism industry. However, in Sweden, as in the other states where the Sami live, the connections with regional development are often inconsistent and weak, and could do more to support the preservation and promotion of Sami culture and create new employment and business opportunities. This study, together with the OECD's broader thematic work on this topic, provides actionable recommendations on how to better include the Sami and other Indigenous Peoples in regional development strategies, learning from and incorporating their own perspectives on sustainable development in the process.

Provides a pan-African synthesis of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM), drawing on multiple authors and a wide range of documented experiences from Southern, Eastern, Western and Central Africa. This title discusses the degree to which CBNRM has met poverty alleviation, economic development and nature conservation objectives.

Community and participation have become central concepts in the nomination processes surrounding heritage, intersecting time and again with questions of territory. In this volume, anthropologists and legal scholars from France, Germany, Italy and the USA take up questions arising from these intertwined concerns from diverse perspectives: How and by whom were these concepts interpreted and re-interpreted, and what effects did they bring forth in their implementation? What impact was wielded by these terms, and what kinds of discursive formations did they bring forth? How do actors from local to national levels interpret these new components of the heritage regime, and how do actors within heritage-granting national and international bodies work it into their cultural and political agency? What is the role of experts and expertise, and when is scholarly knowledge expertise and when is it partisan? How do bureaucratic institutions translate the imperative of participation into concrete practices? Case studies from within and without the UNESCO matrix combine with essays probing larger concerns generated by the valuation and valorization of culture.