Department of Political Science
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Item Natural resource governance in Ghana: bridging the theory and practice gap(University of Ghana, 2015-04-17) Alidu, S.; Armah, R."Yen a ra Asaase Ni ", a popular patriotic song from Ephraim Amu celebrates the great wealth bestowed on the country by nature. Like this song, the national colours of Ghana (specifically the yellow in between the Red and Green) celebrate the mineral wealth of the country. Indeed, the name "Ghana", given after independence, is borrowed from an old empire thought to be rich in gold. Contemporary Ghana is endowed with mineral deposits such as gold, diamond, manganese and bauxite. There are also unexploited economic deposits of iron ore, limestone, kaolin, feldspar and silica sands. Despite the blessing, lack of capacity, legal policies and institutions has impeded Ghana's effort to maximize benefits from these resources. Recognizing the potential of Small Scale Mining (SSM) to national development, the Government of Ghana initiated the regularization of Small Scale Gold Mining in 1989 with the promulgation of the Small Scale Gold Mining Law, PNDCL218. This decision aimed to provide technical support to SSM, capturing all the minerals produced into official channels; generating employment and regulating the industry in such a way that the miners operate in an environmentally friendly manner. However, the existence of these legal frameworks mismatches the ongoing practice, especially the activities of "galamsey" operators. This paper seeks to interrogate the gap between theory and practice and its causes. Using focus group discussions and in-depth interviews of experts, it will argue that until theory matches practice it will be difficult to benefit from our natural resources without heavy losses on the environment and humans.Item e-Government Services in Ghana — Current State and Future Perspective(Proceedings - 2017 International Conference on Computational Science and Computational Intelligence, CSCI 2017, 2018-12) Tchao, E.T.; Keelson, E.; Aggor, C.; Amankwa, G.A.M.Current trends have proven that services provided by Electronic Government (e-Government) are helpful in the realization of good governance objectives. These e-Government services leverage on modern Information and Communication Technologies to provide an effective electronic public administration platform through which citizens and a government’s Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) interact with one another. The openness of these e-Government services enhances a government’s ability to achieve transparency, citizen tr st and participation, while c tting down on the cost of governance. It is for these and many other benefits that the Government of Ghana has placed in pragmatic efforts in enacting e-Government policies and deploying pilot projects in several parts of the country. These deployments have mainly been spearheaded by the National Information Technology Agency (NITA). These pilot projects, to some extent, have achieved objectives such as creation of external relations (e-society); refinement of governance procedures (eadministration); and connecting nationals (e-services and e-citizens). Whilst these pilot projects have improved governance structures, dissemination of information and growth of the economy, lack of good infrastructure and sustainable funding schemes for these projects have been identified as major challenges that have affected the full realization of the set goals. This paper investigates the key mitigating factors associated with the pilot e-Governance projects in Ghana by evaluating the existing systems and then looks towards the future.