Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda (GSGDA) II, 2014-2017.

The Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda (GSGDA) II, 2014-2017, is the fifth in the series of medium-term national development policy frameworks prepared over the past two decades. It is the operational framework of the President’s Coordinated Programme of Economic and Social Policies, 2014-2020.
The GSGDA II was prepared in a participatory manner, with the active involvement of public and private sector agencies as well as civil society groups (including traditional authorities), using the mechanism of cross-sectoral planning groups (CSPGs).
The GSGDA II vision’s is to increase incomes, especially for those in poor households, improved service delivery in water, sanitation, education health and housing across the country, a rise agricultural in productivity to ensure both food and nutrition security, an aggressive revival of manufacturing as part of a broad strategy of production and export diversification, the creation of decent work, particularly for youth and the development of modern infrastructure systems.
To achieve the envisaged transformation, the strategic direction for the medium-term development policy framework will be to leverage Ghana’s natural resource endowments, agricultural potential and the human resource base for accelerated economic growth and job creation through value addition, especially manufacturing.
Consequently, the medium-term priority policies are anchored in the following thematic areas: (i) ensuring and sustaining macroeconomic stability, (ii) enhancing competitiveness of Ghana’s private sector, (iii) accelerated agriculture modernisation and sustainable natural resource management, (iv) oil and gas development, (v) infrastructure and human settlements development, (vi) human development, productivity decent work, (vii) transparent, responsive and accountable governance.
In order to eliminate hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition, over the medium-term the implementation of policy interventions will focus mainly on: the management of water resources; accelerating the provision of safe water; and improved environmental sanitation facilities as well as hygiene education.
In order to make agriculture, forestry and fisheries more productive and sustainable, the following priority intervention are planned by the policy strategic plan for the accelerated modernisation of agriculture: (i) promote the development of Agriculture Estates. This will entail the provision of essential services largely by the private sector, including land clearance and preparation, machinery service centres, certified seeds and other input, (ii) invest in the development of the three selected cash crops (Cocoa, Oil Palm, Cotton) and horticultural products for export and processing, as well as food crops (rice and maize) to ensure food security, (iii) establish marketing organizations along the lines of the Ghana Cocoa Board to support the development of the other cash crops, (iv) encourage and facilitate FBOs and the private sector to establish Agriculture Estates in partnership with Government to support the selected crops, (v) rehabilitate viable existing irrigation infrastructure, promote their efficient utilization and promote private sector participation in irrigation development, management and utilization, (vi) support the private sector to establish feed mills in the country to support the poultry and aquaculture sub-sectors, (vii) develop appropriate agricultural financing instruments including the warehouse receipts system and agriculture insurance scheme to mitigate the key risks faced by farmers, (viii) implement a Fishermen’s Life Insurance Scheme (FLIS) to provide coverage for the loss of life of both marine and inland fishermen when they go on fishing expeditions.
Regarding the reduction of the rural poverty, the major objective of the strategy is to create at least 500.000 jobs in the formal sector by 2017. The target area for accelerated job creation are follows: (i) the agriculture value chain from pre-production to post-production, (ii) sanitation and waste management, (iii) industrial Cities Rejuvenation and creation of an Education Hub. other special initiatives to be implemented to ensure social inclusion and social protection are: (i) institute measures to improve the targeting mechanism of the existing social protection interventions, (ii) enhance funding and cost-effectiveness in the existing social protection interventions, (iii) enhance the institutional arrangements for sectoraln collaboration, implementation and management of social protection interventions, (iv) promote the effective integration of gender considerations at all stages, and in all dimensions of data production and creation of statistical knowledge.
To increase the resilience of livelihoods to disasters, the following activities are planned by the strategy: (i) enforce compliance of relevant regulations and guidelines on small scale mining, (ii) vigorously pursue land reclamation and afforestation in degraded areas, (iii) increase investment in infrastructure for waste management through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs), (iv) intensify enforcement of regulations on noise pollution and control, (v) enforce regulations and bye-laws restricting the development of structures in floodplains, water-ways, wetlands, etc, (vi) improve the resilience of the national capital to natural disasters especially floods, (vii) develop a land tenure system and efficient land administration and management structure to support the transformation agenda.
In the context of governance, in the medium-term the coordination among the Policy and Delivery Unit of the Office of the President, the National Development Planning Commission, and the Ministry of Finance will be strengthened to ensure effective alignment of the annual national budgets and the priority policies and programmes identified in the medium-term national development policy framework.