MTN Foundation Begins Construction Of NICU @ TTH

Hospital and MTN Officials at Sod-cutting

Ghana’s leading mobile telephone company, MTN– has begun the construction of an ultramodern Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at the Tamale Teaching Hospital, the only referral facility for tertiary care for the three regions of the North.

The construction of the facility by the corporate social responsibility arm of the company, MTN Foundation, is geared towards providing a well equipped NICU that would significantly improve the survival rates for critically ill neonates, and for that matter take wider steps in satisfying the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) four global initiative intended to reduce infant mortality in Ghana.

Records show that the Northern, Upper West and Upper East Regions have the highest incidence of maternal and child mortality rates in the country. Low coverage in family planning and antenatal care for pregnant women among other challenges, often lead to conditions that would call for intensive neonatal care.

Ahead of the sod-cutting last week to begin the construction of the GH¢335,000.00 medical facility at the Tamale Teaching Hospital, MTN Foundation also presented vital medical equipment to the Chereponi Polyclinic worth several thousands of Ghana cedis.

General Manager of MTN Northern Business District James Basintale, said the donation to the two hospitals marked the Foundation’s first intervention in the area of health in the Northern Region and also formed part of the celebration of its fifth year in enriching and impacting lives positively.

According to him, since the inception of the MTN Foundation, an amount of GH¢9,724,415.00 million had been invested in health, education and economic empowerment projects across the country. This support, Mr. Basintale explained, took various forms that include building schools, refurbishing old structures, providing ICT infrastructure, educational and non-educational materials.

The Tamale Teaching Hospital is a major referral health facility that served the Upper West and Upper East Regions as well as the Northern part of the Brong Ahafo Region. The hospital as part of its mandate provided advanced clinical services in the areas such as general surgery, eye, ear, nose and throat (ENT), dental, urology, orthopaedics, neurosurgery, obstetrics and gynaecology, medical diagnostics, internal medicine and paediatrics.

Currently, the NICU at the paediatrics department of the hospital lacks the needed facilities for effective management of critically ill neonates. The unit is limited in capacity both in space and equipment. For instance, there is only one NICU bed that serves a client base of over three million, compared to WHO’s recommendation that prescribes about 30 NICU beds per a population of one million.

Furthermore, equipment at the neonatal intensive care unit have outlived their usefulness and some are just being managed because of the constant breakdown in these machines, making NICU care relatively ineffective.

Be Honest When Reporting– WANEP Advise Monitors

WANEP’s conflict early warning monitors and reporters have been charged to show a high sense of meticulousness when gathering information for onward transfer into its Early Warning System (EWS) in order to ensure an effective outcome of conflict response and human security strategy.

This call comes at a time when some state security agencies were often quick to dispel early warning signals picked up by the conflict management and resolution non-governmental organization, West Africa Network for Peacebuilding, during monitoring by its monitors and reporters spread across Ghana and other West African countries.

The need for effective multi-tiered, multi-national and multi-sectoral platform that enhances human security, peace and development has been recognized as an effective mechanism to respond to violent conflicts and humanitarian crises such as the ones bedeviling the West Africa Sub-region.

But central to the aforementioned mechanism, according to WANEP’s Regional Programmes Director Chukwuemeka Eze, was the need for an effective information-gathering system that facilitated informed conflict prevention or mitigation interventions.

Chukwuemeka Eze, Regional Program Dir. 

Speaking at a two-day training workshop on Early Warning for conflict prevention/mitigation organized by WANEP-Ghana in Tamale for its monitors and reporters, Mr. Eze noted that as countries and societies continually faced new human security challenges and threats from diverse sources and actors, early warning and early response had gained wider recognition as a core element in the promotion and maintenance of peace and security for long term social and economic development.

He stressed the need for conflict early warning monitors and reporters to always ensure that information they gathered were the truth or they could be verified so as not to dent their own reputation as well as that of WANEP-Ghana and its partners.

He also said WANEP through its national networks had local peacebuilding organizations that constituted the core of the Network in each country, but the lack of civil society-driven functional early warning systems at national level had limited the scope and scale of data reported into the system, which in turn invariably impacted on the level of analysis developed and response designed to address conflict risk factors. 

Mr. Eze disclosed that the current numeric strength of WANEP early warning reporters in each country was insufficient as they were burdened with a huge task of regular monitoring of entire regions and provinces that led to inadequate coverage and report on issues of peace and human security within their country.  

The early warning system of WANEP-Ghana contributes immensely to the volume of data and information recorded through the improved reporting on a day-to-day basis on emerging issues and proximate conditions from communities which otherwise would not have been captured in media reports. The system provides WANEP-Ghana with added information to enable greater understanding with regard to the dimensions, trends, dynamics and connectors of conflicts in local communities with implications for accentuating the risk factors in the country.   

Justin Bayor, National Network Coordinator

In his opening address, National Network Coordinator of WANEP-Ghana Justin Bayor, said since 2008, the NGO had been operating the Ghana Alert Project; an important component of it was the establishment of the Ghana Early Earning System (EWS) called GHANAWARN that played a tremendous role in averting numerous cases of violence in the country.

In order to strengthen the system, the organization he noted, had decided to improve on the number and quality of reports that were inputted into it by encouraging the general public to report all incidence of human insecurity to its office whilst it also trained its reporters in order to improve the quality of reports that it gets, hence the Tamale workshop.

WANEP-Ghana according to the National Network Coordinator, was also working with state agencies such as the Security Council to help them appreciate and respond to the information that the organization provided and not treat them as suspect information. Hence, Mr. Bayor stated that they would be linked to the EWS through an SMS alert system and they would as well, be trained in basic conflict handling mechanisms/civilian peacekeeping. 

Meanwhile, WANEP-Ghana was established in 2002 to prevent, resolve and transform violent conflicts through collective and coordinated efforts of non-governmental institutions, organizations and individuals actively engaged in peacebuilding practice in Ghana. 

Its vision is to see that Ghana is characterized by a just and violent free society where people co-exist in peace, unity and harmony, allowing them to grow and chart their own course while meeting their basic needs and contributing effectively to national development.

WANEP-Ghana also intends to prevent, resolve and transform violent conflicts and foster peaceful coexistence among Ghanaian communities through collaboration, cooperation and capacity building among stakeholders and civil society-based peacebuilding practitioners as part of its mission.

MTN Commissions New School Block, ICT Centre in Tamale

As part of activities marking its fifth year of social interventions in the country, MTN Ghana Foundation –the corporate social responsibility arm of Mobile Telecommunications Network (MTN), has commissioned a 20-seater Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) Centre and a three-unit JHS block for the Kanvilli Presbyterian Basic School in Tamale in the Northern Region.

At a brief ribbon-cutting ceremony to handover the facilities to management of the school, General Manager for the Northern Business District of MTN-Ghana James Basintale, said the main purpose was to promote conducive learning environment for the children of Kanvilli and its surrounding communities to enhance their academic performance, and to give them equal opportunities like their counterparts in the urban areas.

The Kanvilli Presbyterian Basic School was evidently one of the good schools in the Tamale Metropolis but unfortunately lacked basic educational infrastructure. Due to high rate enrollment at the beginning of each academic year (645 pupils), the classrooms were always congested and took over 90 students that certainly was not conducive for enhancing academic work.

This was the need MTN Ghana Foundation identified and intervened with a total investment of GH¢159,983.91 to build a new Junior High School block including store, office and ICT centre. 

According to Mr. Basintale, the MTN Ghana Foundation expected to achieve improvement in academic records of pupils from the school and region; pupils transitioning smoothly into JHS; and the number of users who would enjoy a better and conducive atmosphere and access to digitized information to triple.

This would serve over 15 communities and in excess of 60,000 people, he said stressing that “MTN is hopeful the people living in and around Kanvilli will take advantage and educate their wards.”

Chairman of the Parent, Teacher Association (PTA) Alhaji Abdul-Razak Saani thanked MTN for their contribution towards ensuring quality basic education in the country particularly in the North.

He, on behalf of management of the Kanvilli Basic School, promised to take very good care of the facilities provided, but like Oliver Twist, appealed to MTN to build a Senior High School in the region to further provide opportunities to other children.    

The MTN Ghana Foundation since its inception in 2007 has invested over GH¢9,724,415.00 million into health, education and economic empowerment projects across the country. The support takes various forms which include building school blocks, refurbishing old structures, providing ICT infrastructure, educational and non-educational materials.

For instance, some of the social interventions in the past few years include refurbishment of Korle-Bu second floor maternity ward, Princess Marie Louise Children’s Hospital, Akropong School for the Blind, Scholarships for needy but brilliant students, and bore-holes for communities in the Upper West Region. 

In the Northern Region, the MTN Ghana Foundation invested over GH¢1,106,000.00 projects which include a support Zuyung Basic School, Tamale Senior High School, Tamale Teaching Hospital, provision of potable water in ten districts, presentation of key medical equipment to Chereponi Polyclinic and among others.

Launched in 1994, MTN is a global telecommunications group, operating in 21 countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. The countries are: Afghanistan, Benin, Botswana, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Cyprus, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Guinea Republic, Iran, Liberia, Nigeria, Republic of Congo (Congo Brazzaville), Rwanda, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Syria, Uganda, Yemen and Zambia. The MTN Group is listed on the JSE Securities Exchange in South Africa under the share code: "MTN".

Govt Asked To Check Issue Of Land Grabbing By Multinationals

Eighty percent of the poor in Ghana live in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions of the country. Thirty-six percent of children under five in the Upper East Region also suffer from chronic malnutrition whilst 34 percent of the people in the Upper West Region are food insecure, according to the World Food Programme.

Most of the lands available are fertile for cropping but the climate and vegetation in these areas are similar to that of Sahelian countries. Majority of the people (estimated 80 percent) farm for a living and yet farmers have to contend with a single, increasingly erratic rainy season which lasts from June to November every year.

Even so, the area still has a great potential to produce a bulk of the country’s staples including rice, maize, millet, guinea corn, beans as well as yam, sweet potatoes, groundnuts, bambara beans, soya beans, among others if mechanized agriculture (comprising of tractor services, irrigation, fertilizer and pesticide subsidies) is aggressively pursued and sustained by successive governments.

But even before the aforementioned are pursued with all the political will and commitment, multinationals in the last four years have been grabbing thousands of hectares of farmlands from unsuspecting indigenes with several mouth-watery promises for them whilst in some cases, the promises are but a hoax.

In the quest for biofuel plantations, and for export food crops to their nationals, foreign countries and corporations are grabbing land in Ghana and throughout Africa mostly through foul means.

Reports suggest that foreign companies now control 37 percent of Ghana’s crop land. The cultivation of jatropha, an energy plant, is pushing small farmers particularly women farmers off their land. Valuable food sources such as shea nuts and dawadawa trees have been cleared to make way for plantations. A total of 769,000 hectares have been acquired by foreign companies such as Agroils (Italy), Galten Global Alternative Energy (Israel), Gold Star Farms (Ghana), Jatropha Africa (UK/Ghana), Biofuel Africa (Norway), ScanFuel (Norway) and Kimminic Corporation (Canada).

According to the Central Intelligence Agency World Fact Book, Ghana has 3.99 million hectares of arable land with 2.075 million hectares under permanent crops. This means that more than 37 percent of Ghana's cropland has been grabbed for the plantation of jatropha.

For instance, Biofuel Africa in 2008 allegedly took advantage of Africa’s traditional system of communal land ownership and current climate and economic hardship to claim and deforest large tracts of land in Kusawgu, Central Gonja District of the Northern Region with the intention of creating “the largest jatropha plantation in the world”.  

Bypassing local authourities, and using methods that dates back to the days of colonialism, this investor reportedly claimed legal ownership of these lands by deceiving an illiterate chief to sign away 38000 hectares with his thumb print. By the time the community realized that they were cheated, 2600 hectares had already been deforested.

Biofuel farmer in Ghana

Thus, as the world marked International Day of Rural Women and World Food Day celebrations in October 15^th and 16^th respectively, women farmers in the Northern Region at a day’s forum organized in Tamale by ActionAid-Ghana, called on the government to check the issue of land grabbing by multinationals and other individuals before a lot of them were denied the right to food.

The forum, which was meant to highlight the challenges that farmers faced, also saw participants calling on all the presidential and parliamentary candidates of the 2012 elections to make clear cut policies that focus on women smallholder farmers by making available subsidized farm inputs, tractor services and irrigation facilities so that they could engage in crop production all year round.

The women also reiterated their appeal to the government to make available more agric extension officers to go round farming communities to educate farmers on current best farming practices that would culminate into good harvest at the end of every cropping season.

Acting Northern Sector Programmes Manager of ActionAid-Ghana, William K. Boakye observed that, in order to ensure that farmers contributed their quota to the development of the nation, their challenges in accessing productive resources must be acknowledge and supported.

According to him, ActionAid believed that domestic responses should involve strengthening transparent, accountable and accessible national land governance, and advocates for securing women’s access to land; securing and protecting land tenure for individuals and communities and effectively regulating external land investment.

Meanwhile, the first International Day of Rural Women was observed on 15 October 2008. This new international day, established by the UN General Assembly recognizes “the critical role and contribution of rural women, including indigenous women, in enhancing agricultural and rural development, improving food security and eradicating rural poverty.”  

The World Food Day on the other hand was proclaimed in 1979 by the Conference of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Its aim is to heighten public awareness of the world food problem and strengthen solidarity in the struggle against hunger, malnutrition and poverty. It is observed on 16^th October every year.