A workshop to develop indicators that have multi-sectoral underpinnings which could be used to assess and monitor rural development efforts by successive governments of the country was on Tuesday opened at Akyawkrom near Ejisu in the Ejisu-Juaben District.
The three-day workshop is being attended by participants from key Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), the donor community, research fellows from BIRD and Community Based Rural Development Project.
It is being organized by the Bureau of Integrated Rural Development (BIRD) of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources (CANR), Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in collaboration with the Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Environment (MLGRDE).
Professor Kwasi Kwafo Adarkwa, Vice-Chancellor of the KNUST noted that rural poverty has far-reaching dimensions and implications for the social harmony and stability of a country.
He said rural development issues have become paramount in the development agenda of emerging economies including Ghana.
The Vice Chancellor stressed that Ghana's efforts toward rural development dated back to the colonial era with the establishment of the Department of Social Welfare and Community Development in 1943.
He noted that successive governments made efforts to track rural development but unfortunately the approaches that had been used had not followed any chronological order or set patterns with the result that in one period traces of other approaches could be found.
He indicated that rural development was national development and if "we track our policy interventions in the rural areas in a holistic manner, the monster of hunger, poverty, ill-health, unemployment, lack of opportunities and hopelessness would be eradicated"
Dr Paul Sarfo-Mensah, Director of BIRD said this was the second time the two bodies had jointly organized a workshop to look at rural development on the national dimension.
He said the first workshop which was on "Rethinking Rural Development in Ghana-Concepts and Experiences", held last year revealed that a disjointed approach has been used in an attempt to promote rural development in the country without a clear cut policy framework.
Dr Sarfo-Mensah said this finding has necessitated the need to develop indicators that have multi- sectoral underpinnings, which could be used to track rural development efforts to enhance the socio-economic development of the rural areas.