Vice President to Open Conference Which Will Determine Smartest Policies for Prosperous Future

H.E. Alhaji Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, Vice President of the Republic of Ghana, will open a multi-day conference in Accra on Thursday at which eminent economists from Ghana and abroad are going to prioritise the smartest solutions to the country’s challenges.

The conference is organised by the Ghana Priorities project, a collaboration between the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) and the award-winning think tank Copenhagen Consensus.

Over the past 18 months, a reference group drawn from the public sector, private sector, civil society organizations, academia, the media, identifiable groups and individuals identified 80 of the most promising solutions for Ghana. 28 teams of Ghanaian, regional and international economists have researched the costs and benefits of each.

Now, this research is presented to a panel of eminent economists who will rank all the interventions and establish what will do the most good for every cedi spent.

The Eminent Panel is comprised of Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, Minister of Finance, Prof. George Gyan-Baffour, Minister of Planning, former Finance Minister Prof. Kwesi Botchwey, Prof. Augustin Fosu from the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER), University of Ghana, Prof. Ernest Aryeetey, Secretary-General of the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA), Prof. Eugenia Amporfu from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), and Prof. Finn Kydland, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences.

Dr. Bjorn Lomborg, President of Copenhagen Consensus and named by TIME magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world, will facilitate the work of the panel.

“It is a great honour to have Mr Ofori-Atta, Prof. Gyan-Baffour, Prof. Botchwey, Prof. Fosu, Prof. Aryeetey, Prof. Amporfu and Prof. Kydland studying the economic, social and environmental impact of policies to help inform the debate on priorities for a prosperous future. The results of their labours can help focus attention on the smartest policies for the country that do the most good for every Ghana cedi spent,” said Dr. Kodjo Esseim Mensah-Abrampa, Director General of the NDPC.

The Eminent Panel’s prioritized list of the most promising policy pursuits will be presented on Monday, 10 August.