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Ghana: Culture Gets Louder Voice

Ghana Culture Forum to create a platform for cultural activists

Published on 10 May 2012

Author(s): AllAfrica/Ruth Okan-Adjetey

Type:  News Originally published 30 March 2012

A forum named Ghana Culture Forum has been launched in Accra to mark the Ghana Culture Day to create a platform for cultural activists to express various local cultures for the advancement and development of the nation.

According to Prof Esi Sutherland-Addy of the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, the Ghana Cultural Forum was conceived as a product of UNESCO's organised consultative forum on the Power of Culture in Development in April 2011 in Accra.

The forum, she said, was aimed at monitoring and intervening in the development of the cultural sector to promote Ghanaian cultural identity, and to coordinate and represent the views and voices of cultural activists to ensure that they are heard.

She cautioned that Civil society organisations in the area of culture, while legitimately addressing issues pertaining to their domain will not make decisive input, if they are not moved out of these domains to advocate collectively for critical issues pertinent to the sector and the nation.

Speaking in her capacity as the Chairperson and Convener of the Ghana Culture Forum, Prof. Sutherland-Addy disclosed that the Forum has successfully facilitated important encounters to initiate advocacy with Parliamentarians on mainstreaming culture and to ratify the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage and the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expression.

Regional Advisor for Culture at the UNESCO Cluster office, Ms Mojisola Okuribido-Seriki, indicated that UNESCO advocated the promotion of the ratification and implementation of important International Culture Instruments, as enshrined in the 2003 Convention for the Safeguard of Intangible Cultural Heritage and the 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, to help better accessing international co-operation, funding and attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The Forum is a platform to showcase indigenous traditional art and crafts, including culinary (food & drinks), literary and verbal arts (publications), perfoming arts (music and dance), the utilisation of indigenous science and technology (health products), and various performances by actor's and musicians groups like Abibigroma and the Ghana Actors Guild.

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