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Self-reliance necessary for development-
Prof Asante
Takrowase (E/R), Jan. 3, Ghanadot/GNA- Prof. S.K.B. Asante,
Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences and an
International Consultant has observed that the nation cannot
fully attain its development potentials until Ghanaians
resolve to be self - reliant.
He said for a nation to be self-reliant it must develop its
people and the society as a whole by adopting attitudes such
as the will to succeed in life through productive labour, to
be resourceful and to conquer new frontiers.
Prof Asante explained that self-reliance and
self-sustainment meant the capacity to make indigenous
resources the stimuli for development and economic growth
and for creating self-renewing societies.
He made the observation at the launching of an educational
endowment fund at Takrowase in the Kwaebibirem District of
the Eastern Region on Thursday.
Prof Asante, who was speaking on the topic "Education as key
to self-reliance and self sustaining development", deplored
the importation of second hand goods from abroad to flood
the home market, making Ghana a nation of shopkeepers.
He said without making any conscientious and sustained
efforts towards the production of finished goods and without
addressing the weak production structures inherited from the
colonial era to reduce the excessive dependence, was
certainly not the way to self-reliance and self-sustaining
development.
He emphasized that "self-reliance and sustainment do not
necessarily mean self-sufficiency", rather it was a pattern
of regeneration through one's efforts of fighting dominance
by beginning to rely on oneself.
Prof. Asante, who is also a Council Member of the National
African Peer Review Mechanism Governing Council, said a
clear demonstration of the lack of self-reliance and
sustainment in the country's development strategy was the
uncompromising fragility of the dependence on external aid.
"The degree of that dependence was as such that whenever
there were delayed external inflows, government finances
were thrown out of balance".
Development based on other people's resources, he said,
meant that the country had to meet conditions laid down by
others.
Others were thus, "given the power to make vital decisions
about the political and socio-economic transformation of our
country, we should seek to avoid incurring the displeasure
of our benefactors or face the threat or reality of the
resources being withdrawn from us".
Prof Asante explained that it did not mean that development
aid, whether bilateral or multilateral should not be
accepted or sought, but what it did mean, was that, first,
such aid should only be accepted if it complemented,
supplemented or acted as a catalyst to local development
efforts and did not deflect the nation from its development
goals and social policies it had chosen for themselves.
He said such development aid as one of its ultimate
objectives should aim at making the recipient country more
self-reliant than before, adding that, loans for
development, whether from bilateral or multilateral sources,
should be regarded as the recipient country's own
development efforts, since those loans would have to be
repaid sooner or later.
"Thus, while foreign aid can assist in Ghana's development
it cannot substitute for national efforts to develop on the
basis of the concepts of self-reliance and
self-sustainment," he added.
GNA
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