By Emmanuel Mensah-Abludo
The United States Ambassador to Ghana, Virginia Palmer, says she admires Ghana’s approach and the recognition that inclusive economic growth and prosperity in the northern part of the country and social cohesion are important weapons against violent extremism.
Ambassador Palmer expressed the sentiment when she interacted with the media during a tour of the Regional Medical Stores in Wa.
GBC’s Emmanuel Mensah-Abludo reports that the Upper West Regional Director of Health Services, Dr. Damien Punguyire, and his team had a closed-door interaction with Ambassador Palmer.
The visit to Regional Medical Stores enabled Ambassador Virginia Palmer to ascertain how key interventions relating to supply-chain systems are working in view of the partnership and support between Ghana and the United States.
The Ambassador indicated that she came to the Upper West to see how the United States could be of help to surmount the challenges of the people: “I came because the north matters to the United States, Ghana matters to the United States, and the north matters to Ghana. So I wanted to see what challenges the Upper West is facing, and particularly security in Burkina-Faso has made everybody more concerned about violent extremism there. I have long admired the government of Ghana’s approach and the government of Ghana’s recognition that inclusive economic growth and prosperity in the north and social cohesion is an important weapon against violent extremism.”
The Regional Medical Stores(RMS) in Wa, was constructed in 1997 (14 years after the creation of Upper West in 1983) with funding from DANIDA. Per the 2020 Population and Housing Census, Upper West Region has a population of 920,479. The close to one million population is served by 306 health facilities comprising an ultramodern Regional Hospital, 9 District Hospitals, 4 Polyclinics, 72 Health Centres, and over 200 Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) Compounds across the Region.
The mandate of the RMS is to serve as a center for the storage and efficient distribution of medicine and non-medicine logistics and equipment to all Health Facilities across the Region to enhance the delivery of quality health services to the masses.
The US Ambassador to Ghana early on met the Upper West Regional Security Council and paid a courtesy call on the Wa Naa, Naa Fuseini Seidu Pelpuo. She underscored the significant role of traditional authorities, saying progressive traditional rulers can play “positive role in protecting all cultural practices that are not harmful”.
Ambassador Palmer highlighted the new commitment to Upper West.
She said: “With the new commitment to this area, we did just announced a new 35-million Dollar program, the RING [Reseilliance In Northern Ghana] Program ten days ago. Now, we have to do agricultural program, we have to make sure people can get access to fertiliser and new agricultural techniques. Last year, we announced 45-million-Dollar Water, health, and sanitation program for the North, so a lot of that will come to Upper West.”
The necessity for social cohesion support for all, specially to safeguard the rights of minority groups also came up during the interaction with the Ambassador.
Ambassador Palmer: ” I had some fascinating conversations with young Ghanaians who are working with the Fulbe communities here. They talked about discrimination, I think it has been real for a long time and they talked about real progress which is being made there. I think there is more work to be done. If I am honest, I think the Fulbe community has been in Ghana for a very long time, they are Ghanaians, they need to feel they are part of Ghana. If they don’t, that makes them vulnerable to the bad guys.”
The Charge d’Affaires of the German Embassy, Madam Sivine Jansen, was also on tour with Ambassador Virginia Palmer.
