Local non-government organizations (NGOs), working towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have been asked to re-strategise their plans to facilitate the attainment of the MDGs before the 2015 deadline.
Mr Charles Abugre, Deputy Director, African Office of the United Nations Millennium Campaign (UNMC) made the call at a meeting with Ghana Millennium Development Goals/Global Call to Action against Poverty Ghana (GMDGs/GCAP), local chapter of UNMC in Accra.
He said even though progress had been recorded in some areas, much efforts were needed to realize the MDGs in totality giving that there was very little time left to the deadline.
"This is why we need to re-package the way we organize our campaigns and move it to the doorsteps of the ordinary people and get them involved to achieve sustainable success" Mr Abugre said.
The meeting, among other things, was to formally introduce Mr Abugre as the new Deputy Director for Africa to the GMDGs/GCAP.
He was appointed late last year to succeed Dr. Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem, who passed away in a road accident in Kenya.
Mr Abugre said faith based groups such as the African Council of Churches and the Christian Council must be brought on board and encouraged to include the MDGs in their messages to their members.
He said: "This is because religious figures wield significant authority over large groups of people and they will listen and act on the messages they receive from them".
He said youths and youth groups must be mobilized to engage in educating their members as means to scaling up awareness and action on the MDGs and its attainment.
Mr Abugre called on the NGOs to adopt innovative ways of assessing the impact of their campaigns towards attainment of the MDGs by speaking to the beneficiaries of MGDs campaigns for their opinion.
He asked African governments to hold the international community accountable to their pledges to ensure availability of resources to support the implementation of MDGs.
Mr Abugre said: "do not take their excuses that the financial and economic crisis has affected our ability to deliver on the promises made towards attaining the MDGs".
He called on Parliamentarians to join the campaign because they represented the people and that the success of the MDGs would mean improvement of the standard of living of their people, the reason they were voted as Parliamentarians.
Rev. Albert Kwabi, Executive Director of GMDGs/GCAP, said the body was collaborating with other relevant state institutions to enhance its activities adding that awareness creation was at its peak in the country even though more needed to be done.
He appealed for more resources to support the MDGs campaign programmes towards the attainment its objectives.