Chief Executive Officer of BC Bencyn Group, Benjamin Anyanah, has challenged the description of the Upper East Region as deprived, arguing that the region has natural resources and human potential that could be harnessed to drive development.
Mr Anyanah said discussions about the region had focused heavily on its development challenges without paying enough attention to the resources and opportunities available to its people.
He argued that the region had yet to fully explore and develop resources beneath the ground and those available on the surface, making it premature to define the area principally by deprivation.
According to him, agriculture, rivers, rocks and other natural resources could provide opportunities for economic activity and improved livelihoods if properly developed.
Mr Anyanah said transforming those resources into development would, however, require people with the skills, creativity and mindset to identify opportunities and develop practical solutions.
He therefore called for changes to Ghana’s education system, arguing that greater emphasis should be placed on practical learning, innovation, creativity and problem-solving.
He said an education system heavily focused on theory risked producing young people who had acquired academic knowledge but lacked sufficient opportunities to apply it to challenges within their communities.
Mr Anyanah pointed to the ability of previous generations to develop crafts, music, cultural practices and other forms of production from locally available resources despite having limited access to formal education.
He said that experience demonstrated the importance of creativity and people’s ability to transform resources within their environment into useful products and economic opportunities.
Mr Anyanah consequently called for greater investment in technical and vocational education to equip young people with practical skills that could enable them to create employment and contribute to the region’s development.
He urged stakeholders to rethink how the Upper East Region is described and focus more attention on developing its natural resources and investing in its people.
He said addressing the region’s development challenges would require moving beyond identifying problems to finding practical ways of using available resources to create opportunities.
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