Vice President Opoku-Agyemang urges shift from aid-dependency to citizen-led development financing

Ghana’s Vice President, Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, has called for a paradigm shift in development financing in Ghana and across Africa from aid dependency to ownership, civic empowerment, and strategic investments rooted in citizen priorities.

She emphasised that traditional sources of development financing such as official development assistance and concessional external funding were under severe strain, presenting a need to reimagine the country’s development financing.

Prof. Opoku-Agyemang made the call in Accra when she addressed participants at the 2025 edition of the Ghana Civil Society Forum (GCSF) in Accra.

She mentioned rising public debt, shrinking fiscal space, and global crises such as climate change, conflict, and economic shocks as major stressors on the existing model of development financing.

STAR-Ghana Foundation organised the forum in partnership with Transparency International, WACSI, and Oxfam, among others on the theme: “Reimagining Development Financing – Challenges, Opportunities and the Way Forward”.

It brought together civil society actors, funders, policymakers, private sector players and development partners to explore innovative approaches to development financing in Ghana and civil action in the midst of national and global crises.

“Public debt is rising and the fiscal space for governments to respond to basic needs is becoming narrower.

“At the same time, we face major crises including climate change, conflict and economic shocks with great impacts on vulnerable communities.

All these signals that we cannot rely solely on aid as a primary engine of development”, Prof. Opoku-Agyemang explained.

She emphasized the need for financing that prioritizes domestic resource mobilization, reforms in public finance, and harnessing innovative instruments such as climate finance, and diaspora bonds.

“Reimagining financing also means harnessing new resources such as blended finance, climate finance, diaspora bonds and sovereign wealth vehicles that unlock local and global capital”, she explained.

The Vice President mentioned key reforms by the government, including the drafting of a Non-Profit Bill to provide a dedicated legal framework for Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) operations.

She also reiterated the government’s commitment to strengthening civic engagement, pointing to recent national dialogues on education and the economy, and efforts to establish a National Governance Council as evidence of inclusive governance in practice.

On harnessing Ghana’s youthful population, the Vice President reiterated the need to invest in education, digital skills, and decent work, as well as create platforms for youth-led civic action.

Prof. Opoku-Agyemang also called for a new social contract grounded in “shared accountability, co-investment, and decentralized power”, urging collective action across sectors and generations to drive national transformation.

Meanwhile, the UNESCO representative to Ghana, Mr Edmond Mukala, said the Ghana Civil Society could lead the shift in aid-dependency financing by embracing social enterprise models, domestic resource mobilization, and diaspora engagement towards building financial resilience.

He indicated that “development is no longer the sole responsibility of the government”, stressing the need for “agile, accountable and cross-sector collaboration grounded in trust, shared values and evidence” to achieve national development.