On March 30, 2021, STAR-Ghana Foundation held a high-level validation meeting with Ministry of National Security. The meeting brought together ministers from the National Security, Interior, Defense, Foreign Affairs, the Attorney General, the National Security Advisor, and the Regional Ministers of the five northern regions.
The meeting was to present the draft roadmap for sustainable peace, security, and development in Northern Ghana, as part of the Conflict, Security and Stability Fund (CSSF) project with funding from Foreign Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO), a two-month pilot being implemented in the five Northern regions of Ghana with the objective of contributing to addressing the underlying causes of conflict, insecurity, and underdevelopment in Northern Ghana. The project was implemented by STAR Ghana Foundation, in partnership with National Peace Council (NPC), Northern Development Authority (NDA) and Northern Ghana Development Forum (NDF)
The roadmap collated views from regional and national dialogues spaces, where stakeholders reflected on the drivers of conflicts in northern Ghana and how to catalyze and coordinate efforts to address the underlying causes of conflicts and insecurity in Northern Ghana. The roadmap outlines the drivers of conflicts, existing gaps, recent and ongoing peace and security programmes, opportunities for sustainable peace, recommendations on strategies for dealing with drivers of conflicts and insecurities and a proposal for an implementation mechanism for the roadmap.
The Executive Director of STAR-Ghana Foundation, Mr. Ibrahim-Tanko Amidu in his remarks highlighted some identified drivers of conflicts which included youth poverty and unemployment, chieftaincy and land tenure governance, political party youth violence, violent extremism in neighboring countries, negative perceptions of Northern Ghana, growing fulaniphobia among others. He noted that during the regional and national convenings, it was realized that although attempts have been made to address the growing insecurities in the region, there were still some gaps in sustaining the peace in Northern Ghana.
All the government officials present were grateful to the Foundation and the Technical Support Group that worked to finalize the roadmap. They expressed appreciation at the fact that the drivers of conflicts and strategies for resolving them were collected from the indigens. The minsters indicated that they would allow their technical team analyze the document and after review, incorporate the roadmap into their respective development plans for the year.
download roadmap here https://star-ghana.org/learning-2/publications-and-resources/reports/176-roadmap-for-sustainable-peace-security-and-development-in-northern-ghana/file