Mrs. Akosua Frema Osei-Opare Delivers 2021 Alumni Lecture

Mrs. Akosua Frema Osei-Opare

Mrs. Akosua Frema Osei-Opare, an alumna of the University of Ghana, has delivered the 2021 Alumni Lecture on the topic ‘Social Protection in Ghana: Are We On Track?’. This year's lecture was chaired by the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Nana Aba Appiah Amfo.

Mrs. Osei-Opare, who is Ghana’s first female Chief of Staff, dwelt mainly on the prevailing social protection interventions for mitigating poverty and vulnerabilities, with recommendations to enhance their effectiveness in the future.

She noted how Ghana’s social protection story has evolved over time, steadily increasing its scale and functionalities. She elucidated Ghana’s poverty syndrome affecting the aged, women, children and people with disability, who have been identified as the most vulnerable. This has resulted in the introduction of several social protection policy initiatives aimed at mitigating the associated hardships.

The Chief of Staff highlighted improved political commitments and support for the delivery of social protection. She mentioned the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme, the School Feeding Programme, Free Senior High School (SHS) policy, Capitation Grants for schools at the basic levels, the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), free maternal healthcare, the fertilizer subsidies for farmers, youth employment initiatives, the Disability Fund, and others, which has served as important social protection initiatives in the country.

The 2021 Alumni lecturer noted that the Free SHS programme has enrolled over 1.4 million students between 2018 and 2020, a 58 per cent increase compared to the 2014 to 2016 enrolment figure of 881,600, thus, increasing equality, enhancing access, and ensuring equity in the country’s secondary education. “This substantial increase is due to the removal of cost barriers, expansion of infrastructure and a more creative and equitable enrolment approach”, Mrs. Akosua Frema Osei-Opare said.

She further recommended that the Ministry of Finance explores innovative financing pathways to sustain social protection in Ghana and urged the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection to increase the pace of completing the Social Protection Bill to be passed into law. This will promote accountability and transparency in Ghana’s social protection agenda and ‘leave no one behind’.

A crossection of the audience at the event

The Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Nana Aba Appiah Amfo affirmed the University’s commitment to ensuring that quality higher education is accessible to persons of all classes and social standing. She applauded Government for initiating or sustaining already existing social protection policies for vulnerable groups and proposed strong collaborative efforts between government agencies and scholars in the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of social protection policies.

“One effective way of monitoring will be to collaborate with researchers because we will have to rely on credible data that will allow us to graduate persons who are on these policies because essentially what we have is social assistance. Here at the University of Ghana, we have many brilliant researchers across our Institutes, Centres and Departments,” Prof. Amfo opined.

Prof. Nana Aba Appiah Amfo

Mr. Richard Obeng Okrah, Chairman, University of Ghana Alumni Association (UGAA), revealed the Association’s plans to modernise classrooms on the main campus and other satellite learning centers to complement the University Management’s efforts in meeting the challenges of the learning management software.

He also seized the opportunity to announce the hybrid nature of UGAA’s annual general meeting for 2022; an avenue to enable all alumni irrespective of their location to make contributions to augment the University’s own fundraising and growth policy initiatives.

“Let me assure you all and sundry that there will be total transparency and accountability in managing the funds”, Mr. Okrah stated.

Mr. Richard Obeng Okrah

Presentations were made to Mrs. Akosua Frema Osei-Opare by members of UGAA, her Office, family, Volta Hall, Fidelity Bank and friends.

The Ghana Dance Ensemble graced the occasion and there was a seperewa appellation to herald the lecturer.

In attendance were the Vice-President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia; Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr. Ernest Addison and his two deputies, Dr. Maxwell Opoku-Afari and Mrs. Elsie Addo Awadzi; Ministers of State, Members of Parliament, Leaders of Political Parties, members of the Diplomatic Corps and traditional leaders. The Lecture was also attended by University officials, members of the Public, Alumni, Students and Staff of the University.

A group photo of officials before the event