HELP MODIFY TRADITIONAL BELIEFS — PROF BENING (PAGE 20, NOV 17)

THE First Vice- Chancellor of the University for Development Studies (UDS), Professor Raymond Bening has called on the people of northern Ghana, especially traditional authorities to help modify traditional beliefs and cultural practices that hinder the development of the area.
Prof Bening noted that harmful traditional beliefs and cultural practices had more serious effects on the nation’s development than physical and economic factors.
He was delivering a paper on “Endogenous development, poverty reduction and Africa’s development; a justification for a united Africa?” at the first African regional conference on endogenous development in Tamale.
He cited for instance that some of “these traditions and beliefs hinder the adoption of new crops to improve on food security”.
Prof. Bening stated that although science and technology were the principal cause of economic growth and development in the modern world, their dissemination had cultural and political implications as they eventually eroded cultural identities and disturbed community life.
He stressed that Africa was not a poor continent but rather her resources were poorly managed by her leaders.
“The social safety nets in the communalism or collectivism of African traditions are rapidly displaced by individualistic materialism with catastrophic consequences such as street children, beggars on the streets cascading rural-urban migration, increasing crime rates, among others,” Prof. Bening said.
According to him, “unless Africa controls the rate of population growth, socio-economic development will elude the continent for many decades if not for another century”.
“After so many years of independence, have we produced enough elites and leaders to shepherd our countries out of poverty, political instability, graft and corruption?” he asked.
He stated that the need for regional integration and African Unity was no longer a matter for debate but “why the delay and what form will it take?” he further asked.
Prof. Bening suggested among other things the need for investment in education with emphasis on eradicating the general lack of technical skills among people in countries on the continent.
The acting Vice Chancellor of the UDS, Professor Kaku Sagary Nokoe said the endogenous development framework which was premised on the agency of local people in the management of their own development challenges had been promoted among partner universities and research institutions, non-governmental organisations and local communities.
He announced that endogenous development institutional partners in Africa, South Asia and South America had since 2008 been implementing the capacity and theory building of Universities and Research Institutions in Endogenous Development (CAPTURED).
This project is aimed at generating critical mass of innovative thinkers and actors who would lead the search for workable interventions to the development challenges of the third world countries.
The Northern Regional Minister, Mr Stephen Nayina in a speech read on his behalf, stressed the need for the participants to “shift from the usual academic engagements, rhetorics and theatrics that hardly address the realities to providing leadership in the shaping of our development agenda”.
The three-day conference was on the theme: “Endogenous development as an alternative to Africa’s development?”.
Traditional rulers, the academia, researchers and representatives of non-governmental organisations attended the conference.
There were delegations from some African countries like Botswana and South Africa as well as African-Americans from the Diaspora.