He called on government to minimise the issues of insecurity and bring out effective governance structures into the implementation process.  Dr Danso was speaking at a high-level dialogue on awareness and implementation of the SDGs in Ghana.

The event was on the theme: “Achieving the SDGs innovating, monitoring and partnering for the implementation of the SDGs in Ghana.” He called on government to re-craft some of the SDGs into creativity messages to be shown on televisions to educate the public on the goals to replace the Telenovelas.

Nana Osei Bonsu, the Executive Director, Private Enterprise Federation (PEF), said government needed to have the political will and commitment to implement the SDGs. He said there should be a planning mechanism to address some of the challenges and achieve the SDGs in developing the economy.

“The SDGs required the involvement of everybody including the private sector, CSOs and the citizenry in its implementation process,” he added. He said the private sector was looking for opportunity to collaborate with others to promote the implementation of the SDGs.Dr Felix Addo-Yobo, of the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), said data was one of the challenges the country faced to plan for development.

He said the NDPC was working with the Ghana Statistical Services to develop a data collection mechanism to enable them get data for development.   He called on all to put their hands on board to help and support in the implementation of the SDGs. Mr Michael Ayensu, Director, External Resource Mobilisation-Multilateral of the Ministry of Finance commended the organisers of the programme to deliberate on the implementation of the SDGs.

He said the Ministry intended to broaden the tax net to include more taxpayers to mobilise more revenue for development.  He said government would map up the SDGs with policies and programmes in the next budget for consideration of the implementation of the goals. Madam Christine Evan-Klock, the UN, Resident Coordinator to Ghana, said government’s commitment was needed to work together with stakeholders to address the challenges and to ensure the smooth implementation of the SDGs.

 She said Ghana had a chance in achieving and implementing the goals and called on the citizenry to own the SDGs.