While addressing participants at a one-day validation workshop to assess the legal environment for civil society and philanthropy in Ghana, which was organised by Africa Philanthropy and West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI), the Executive Director of WACSI, Nana Asantewa Afadzinu, stated that civil society organisations need the appropriate legal framework and infrastructure to support their work.

Afadzinu said, ‘For Ghana’s sustainable development, [we] have been talking about Ghana beyond [aid]. It is time to look at the local resources and how we can give towards supporting development work, and there must be a policy regulatory framework and infrastructure to support it’.

The Executive Director of Africa 2000 Network, Edem K. Senanu, who presented the results of his research at the event noted that lack of data collection has been a major challenge confronting civil society and philanthropic organisations in the country. Sharing insights from his study, ‘An In-Depth Assessment of the Legal Environment for Civil Society Including Philanthropic Organisations in Ghana’, Senanu said, ‘there is an urgent need for Ghana to ensure policy and legal compliance for the oversight of the CSO sector, in order not to be blacklisted internationally, and significant work has already been done in drafting NGO bills in the past and these should be factored in the current review on the way forward and in the crafting a sustainable NGO bill’.

Also speaking at the workshop, the Executive Director of the Africa Philanthropy Network, Stigmata Tenga, stated that Ghana needs legislation that will help civil society organisations and other non-governmental organisations in the country mobilise the local philanthropic potential, which remains latent.

Source: Modern Ghana

Photo source: Stig Nygaard