Events & Programs

The Graphic National Development Series (GNDS) is a forum for discussing development issues with focus on national consensus. Currently, our country faces a problem where almost every national discourse is framed in a partisan political cloak that obscures the germane issues that otherwise require dispassionate treatment.

This denies the country the benefit of pooling balanced, informed ideas for national consensus, especially as those who do not want to be politically tagged stay away from the discourse.  There is the need to consciously steer national discourses away from political partisanship so that even where political parties are involved, non-political actors will be comfortable to share their views dispassionately in order to build consensus on national issues. The GNDS has the benefit of generating national discourses untainted with partisan political colouration and draws knowledgeable persons and statesmen to share their views and contribute to consensus building for the country’s development without fear of being tagged with a political party.

Format : Plenary session

The Graphic National Development Series has a plenary session where expert speakers deliver papers on topics derived from perspectives of a selected theme. The experts then form a panel where a moderator teases out the issues from their papers for discussion and participants make contributions to the discussion. This is to help build a consensus. A rapporteur general prepares a report to be submitted to relevant institutions to influence policy making. Out of the composite report, a communique is issued.  

Format : Resource Persons

To deliver quality information, the Graphic National Development Series draws resource persons from the best across society – from professional bodies, academia, and international organisations to individuals who, by their own professional approach to issues, have earned universal respect among society. This is to ensure that discussions stay pure from partisan politics and focus on issues. Even where the topic requires that politicians should be used as resource persons, the platform requires of them to make issue-based presentations.

Target audience

The audience are educated, largely middle and upper classes in various segments. A segment of them are the political class. They make decisions regarding the direction of the nation. They believe in the professionalism of Graphic and its approach to journalism and, therefore, put weight on information from its brands and platforms. However, they tend to be partisanly sensitive during decision-making as they weigh its political ramifications on their electoral fortunes. But largely, they are influenced by compelling data or expert information. 

Another segment is the intelligentsia. They are analytical and appraise issues before taking a position to support or oppose them. They love dispassionate discourse which is insightful. They tend to be part of think tanks that seek to influence government decisions through informed pressure. 

Professionals and technocrats form another segment. They are knowledgeable in their fields, meticulous and technical in their approach to issues. They tend to be part of policy implementation.

Dissemination of GNDS outcomes 

We disseminate the outcomes of the GNDS through traditional and new media, both live and post-programme. Also, the outcomes as well as papers delivered by the speakers will be published and copies of the publication placed at libraries. The communique is distributed to relevant institutions and the government.

GNDS 2024 

Theme: Quality Health for All.”  

A healthy population is critical to the nation’s development. For that purpose, governments over the years have given attention to matters of citizens’ health. However, from the perspective of both policy and individual behaviour, there are still challenges with achieving quality health for all. For example, climate change has become an issue impacting negatively on health in respect of floods and malaria and heat and cerebrospinal meningitis. In the same way, occupational health is gaining currency. It may be important to reassess our health policy on whether it is holistic enough.

In this regard, this theme was carefully selected to highlight the relevant issues and recommend practical solutions to them. 

Objective

• To come out with practical ideas, which when implemented, will improve quality health in Ghana
• To collate such ideas into a document to benefit policy-making

First edition 

This is the second edition. The first edition was held 2023 at Kumasi. The theme was, Transforming Ghana’s Agriculture Using Home-Grown Solutions for Food Security,” The objective was to gather ideas to influence public policy on food security.