STAR Ghana Foundation (SGF) is a national centre for active citizenship and philanthropy. It works to strengthen civil society and enable citizens to engage with the state to ensure accountable, transparent and responsive governance at both national and local levels.
The Foundation intends to implement a programme of support for civil society actions focusing on the 2020 Presidential and Parliamentary elections. The overall purpose is to increase the effectiveness of citizens’ actions for credible and inclusive presidential and parliamentary elections.
Towards the development and implementation of the Elections 2020 programme, the Foundation is soliciting stakeholders’ views on key issues and strategies around which the programme should be developed. Two consultative meetings will be held in Tamale and Accra as follows:
Sector |
Date |
Venue |
Time |
Northern |
Thursday 11th July 2019 |
Modern City Hotel, Tamale |
9am – 12pm |
Southern |
Tuesday 16th July 2019 |
Tomreik Hotel, East Legon - Accra |
9am – 12pm |
In addition to the two physical meetings, the Foundation will conduct an online consultation. Details of this will be shared in due course.
Participation is open to the public. Follow the link to register. For further information, contact us from Monday to Friday, 9am – 5pm on 0302 774 488 or via email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Related projects
Anti-Corruption Partners (small grant component) receive grant extension
In October 2017, STAR Ghana launched an Anti-Corruption Call aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of citizens’ actions against corruption through the provision of among others: grants and technical support.
The Call was divided into three components – small grants, innovative alliances, and strategic level policy influencing. STAR Ghana subsequently awarded approximately GH¢14,058,503.81 to 33 partners (8 strategic, 17 small grants and 8 innovative alliance). These partners are implementing projects around 3 thematic areas, namely:
- Transparency in pro-poor programmes & Provision of social services and local procurements: This focuses on the provision of social services, access to pro-poor programmes such as the school feeding, Capitation grants, fertilizer subsidies, pre-mix fuel, transparency in social inclusion projects.
- Public education, Media and Technology: This includes actions aimed at ensuring transparency in the provision of social services and local procurement. that institutions commitments to citizens are implemented fully around access and quality of public services, particularly health education and local contracts.
- Regulatory framework and policies on transparency and accountability: Focuses on influencing policy, policy monitoring including the RTI, OSP, Whistleblower act etc.
The small grants component projects were funded for an initial one-year duration to test approaches to effective anti-corruption actions at the local level. In February 2019, STAR Ghana commissioned an independent evaluation of projects under the Small grants component of the Anti-Corruption Call. The purpose was to recommend to the Programme Management Team (PMT), a shortlist of projects for extended STAR Ghana support. This will consolidate results within existing project contexts, and/or replicate or upscale project strategies to new areas or stakeholders to achieve critical mass for success and sustainability.
Broadly, the assessment considered the following;
- The extent to which the respective projects achieved their results, as set out in the project’s performance plan;
- Linked to the above, the effectiveness, and innovativeness of project strategies, including their alignment with STAR Ghana strategies on GESI, Value for money (VfM) and learning;
- The contribution of the project to the objectives of the Anti-corruption call and to STAR Ghana’s logframe Outcome and Outputs;
The following partners were selected and subsequently approved by the Governing Council of STAR Ghana Foundation for grant extentions:
- GLOWA - Global Action for Women Empowerment
- SILDEP - Social Initiative for Literacy and Development Program
- PAPADEV - Participatory Partners in Development
- GSPD - Ghana Society of the Physically Disabled
- CALID - Centre for Active Learning and Integrated Development
- TEERE
The Governing Council and Programme Management Team of STAR Ghana Foundation wish to congratulate the partners and wish them the best in sustaining and expanding the successes achieved.
STAR Ghana facilitates National Stakeholder Review Meeting on Basics in Integrity Education
The National Council for Curriculum Assessment (NaCCA) and LeadAfrique International have organized a national stakeholders’ meeting in Accra on Monday 24th June 2019. The purpose of the meeting was to share the progress of work on the `Basics in Integrity education` project with key stakeholders and elicit feedback.
The `Basics in Integrity education` is a Lead Afrique project, working in conjunction with the National Council for Curriculum Assessment Agency of the Ministry of Education and supported by STAR Ghana Foundation. The project seeks to weave the principles of integrity into society’s fabric by churning out a new generation of creative and responsive leaders.
The project has developed a curriculum comprising: teachers’ manual and facilitators’ lesson notes; student readers; and 6-part animations to aid the teaching. This has been pretested with 770 students spread across 5 schools.
Josephine Nkrumah, Chairperson of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) and Chairperson for the event encouraged parents and guardians to show the right attitude around children to ensure that children picked the right values and habits as future leaders. She said:
“If we will fight corruption, then what you teach in the schools is important. The key to fighting corruption lies in our young ones who can imbibe the values easier,”
Mr. Michael Ohene-Effah, a co-founder of Lead Afrique International, indicated that corruption was one of the top causes for the lack of development in Africa over the past 40 years. He observed that it was preferable to focus on corruption prevention by striving to create a generation of people who were of high moral standing. This he suggested, is a more pro-active and preventive approach to fighting corruption.
It is anticipated that the new curriculum would be distributed to schools in Ghana upon approval by the Material Development Unit of the National Council for Curriculum Assessment (NaCCA).
Development Partners’ Heads of Cooperation Group Tour Northern Ghana
Development Partners’ Heads of Cooperation (HoC) Group in Ghana, under the leadership of Philip Smith – Chair of Heads of Cooperation Group and DFID Country Director, have embarked on a study tour of the Northern Region of Ghana. The purpose was to explore and abreast themselves with the development challenges in Northern Ghana in the context of Ghana beyond aid. The tour, held on Wednesday 29th May 2019 was strategically scheduled to precede the official opening of the maiden Northern Ghana Development Conference in Tamale on 30th May 2019.
The Northern Ghana Development Conference was co-hosted by the five Regional Coordinating Councils in Northern Ghana (Northern, Savanna, North-East, Upper East and Upper West). The event, which was held on the theme: `Accelerating the sustainable development of Northern Ghana in the context of peace, security and Ghana Beyond Aid` was supported by STAR Ghana Foundation with funding from UKAid, EU and DANIDA; USAID and Care International.
The Northern Regional Minister, Hon. Salifu Sa-eed, welcomed the team on behalf of the five Regional Ministers, as well as the Chiefs and people of the North ahead of the tour. He described the brief period of engagement as an opportunity to share the challenges and prospects of Northern Ghana with the team. He bemoaned the poverty gap and inequality between the north and south of Ghana and called for synergy to mitigate the challenges.
"We need synergy, the synergy would have to come in by pulling the human resources, expertise and financial resources so that we can holistically approach the developmental challenges in our part of the country”
AVNASH Industries Ghana Limited
The Team visited the AVNASH Industries Ghana Limited, a diversified foodstuffs producer currently trading in edible oils, soap, and rice. The large-scale private sector investor provides opportunities for smallholder farmers in the northern part of Ghana.
Ranjan Ghushal, Northern Head of AVNASH received and welcomed the visiting team to the facility. He shared information on the work of the firm and indicated that the firm no longer has the challenge of unavailability of quality paddy (rice), thanks to the DFID funded MADE programme.
“People here never considered that paddy (rice) could give them economic earning, so they used to grow lady finger' (okro) and pumpkin in irrigated lands... Now after a while of engagement they have started to grow paddy, that is a good sign, land is increasing for paddy and people are understanding”
He was however quick to add that some challenges hinder the operation of the firm. These include: the relatively high expectation of farmers in terms of remuneration for the paddy they produce due to their relatively high cost of production particularly around cost of input. He also mentioned the lack of patronage of local rice among Ghanaians as the current biggest challenge of AVNASH.
"We have the plant, but we are unable to process the paddy, because after processing you have to sell the rice in the market… our price is the lowest in the market but still it is not moving, the reason behind that is imported rice is cheaper... imported Vietnam or Thailand rice is GHS20.00 cheaper for every 50kg.”
He called for the Government of Ghana’s support in purchasing their produce – under the School Feeding Programme to avert a possible shut down of the factory. This he believes will save the economic livelihood of about 9,000 farmers they are connected to in Northern Ghana.
Visit to Sankpala T.I. Primary School - Complementary basic education (CBE)
The visiting team visited one of the Complementary Basic Education (CBE) schools at Sankpala in the Central Gonja District of Ghana. The team was received by Fred Birikorang of the Ghana Education Service. After a moment of exchanging pleasantries, members of the HoC Group interacted with some parents, teachers and children who are direct beneficiaries of the CBE programme.
The Complimentary Basic Education (CBE) was a £27.9 million second-chance education programme which ran from June 2012 to November 2018. The programme supported 247,888 out-of-school children aged 8-14 years, who had never been to school or who had dropped out from primary school to learn and transition into the formal school system and contribute to breaking the inter-generational cycle of poverty. On completing the programme, children were supported to enter formal primary schools at the appropriate class level, enabling children fast-track their schooling years and catch up with their peers.
Mr Birikorang in his presentation indicated the CBE programme’s lack of financial resources to compensate facilitators of the CBE programme as its biggest challenge. As a result, the Programme hires non-professional teachers as facilitators. He was however hopeful that the situation could change for the better. This is because the programme had succeeded in arranging for National Service Personnel to take over the teaching/facilitation, a situation that will no longer present the pressure of remuneration for facilitators/teachers as National Service Personnel receive their allowances directly from the Government of Ghana.
Philip Smith, expressed his appreciation of the commitment of the Government of Ghana to the programme and described it as a perfect example of `Ghana beyond aid.`
“… this is an example of Ghana beyond aid because the Ghana Education Service has agreed to take on what was a DFID/USAID funded programme. The Minister of Education has committed 1% of the basic education budget to the complementary Basic Education Programme (CBE) so he’s committed to continuing that work to get out of school children in Ghana, particularly in Northern Ghana back in school. That’s a live example of Ghana beyond aid.” he said.
Demonstration of Child Protection Toolkit at Guunayilli community
The visiting team ended the tour at Guunayilli community within the Tamale Metropolis where they observed a practical demonstration on the use of a child protection community facilitation toolkit. The team was welcomed with a colourful display of culture. This was after the team had paid a courtesy call to the chief of the community, who later joined a well organised durbar where the demonstration of the tool kit was held.
Members of the HoC Group together with the Chief and People of the Guunayilli pledged to protect children from abuse. The team members interacted with the community folks and asked questions on the main protection issues among children in the community.
The Child Protection programme in Ghana is supported by Canada, DFID, KOICA, USAID, Norway, European Union, and the Netherlands Committee for UNICEF.