Accra, Ghana//-Ghana’s Vice President Professor Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang today challenged members of the civil society organisations (CSOs) to move away from donor dependency toward greater national ownership and innovation in development financing.
She made this call at the opening of this year’s Ghana Civil Society Forum held in Accra.
“We must now reimagine our approach by moving from dependency to ownership. Development is not only about money, but also about agency. Civic actors must remain at the heart of our national progress”, she stated.
The Forum, which is a key platform for dialogue among civic actors, policymakers, and development stakeholders committed to shaping sustainable development policy and practice in Ghana, was held under the theme ‘Reimagining Development Financing and Civic Action: Challenges, Opportunities, and the Way Forward’.
Prof Opoku-Agyemang, who was the guest speaker, acknowledged the pressing challenges facing Ghana’s development landscape, including declining support from traditional donors, limited fiscal space, and growing constraints on civic engagement.
She underscored the importance of building a development framework that prioritises local ownership, innovation, and shared responsibility.
She outlined several initiatives being undertaken by the government to address these challenges, including ongoing reforms to broaden the national tax base, enhance public financial management systems, and introduce progressive policy changes through the upcoming 2025 national budget.
The Vice President also revealed that the government is exploring innovative financing models to ensure more sustainable development investments.
Prof. Opoku-Agyemang highlighted the critical role of civil society organisations (CSOs) in monitoring public policy, advocating for citizens’ rights, and delivering community-based solutions.
She noted that Ghana’s youthful population represents a significant untapped potential and urged stakeholders to harness the benefits of digital transformation and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) for inclusive growth.
She concluded by urging all stakeholders—government, civil society, and the citizenry—to embrace a new social contract rooted in shared accountability, co-investment, and decentralised governance.
“This forum was a reminder that inclusive development is possible when government, civil society, and communities work together to create lasting, citizen-focused change,” she stated.
“External concessional financing is also increasingly limited. Public debt is rising.
And the fiscal space for government to respond to basic needs is becoming narrower,” the Vice-President said.
“All these signals that we cannot rely on aid as the primary engine of development. We are being challenged to think differently and, as a government, create an enabling environment to boost domestic investment and mobilise new forms of financing,” she added.
Prof. Opoku-Agyemang said the country and many African nations were reexamining models that rely solely on aid.
“We are deepening domestic resource mobilisation, broadening the tax base, and reforming the public financial management system,” she said.
Prof. Opoku-Agyemang said the government was also committed to creating an enabling environment where civic actors would be empowered.
In his welcome address, the Executive Director of STAR-Ghana Foundation and Convener of the forum, Alhaji Ibrahim-Tanko Amidu, noted that most CSOs in the country relied heavily on funding from bilateral donors and philanthropic foundations adding that, “The shrinking of international aid has serious implications — not just for the financing of civil society activities — but for the very survival of the sector”.
He therefore urged young people to explore new and unconventional ways of organising civic efforts that break free from outdated models.
Mr Amidu added, “We must rethink what civil society looks like, how it operates, and how it brings stronger, younger, and more diverse voices into national development conversations.”
The United Nations Resident Coordinator in Ghana, Osama Makawi, in a speech read on her behalf by the UNESCO Country Representative, Edmond Moukala, reaffirmed its commitment to support the country’s national development priorities through strengthened partnerships, innovative financing mechanisms and inclusive policy dialogue.
—-Undergo ‘productivity revolution’
The Chairman, National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), Dr Nii Moi Thompson, also challenged the CSOs in Ghana to undergo a “productivity revolution” in response to declining donor funding and growing demands for transparency and local impact.
According to him, the sustainability of civil society in Ghana now hinges on its ability to do more with less by becoming more efficient, transparent, and results-driven in the face of declining donor support and increasing public scrutiny.
“With shrinking external aid and rising scrutiny, civil society must do more than survive; it must transform. This means maximising the use of every Cedi, proving their impact, and rebuilding public trust,” he said
Dr Thompson, who is also the Senior Advisor to the President on SDGs, said the era of unrestricted donor support was fast fading, with traditional aid models giving way to locally driven development financing.
He noted that only two per cent of global development aid reaches local organisations in the Global South, and therefore advocated for a profound systemic inequality in the distribution of resources within the global development aid system.
To overcome these realities, he encouraged CSOs to embrace strategies such as engaging high-net-worth individuals, exploring hybrid financing models, and leveraging technology-driven tools like crowdfunding and mobile money platforms.
However, he cautioned that “none of these will matter” without strong internal systems and measurable results.
He said, “The key issue is not just mobilising resources, but how efficiently and credibly they are deployed. Ghanaians are generous, but they must see that their contributions are making a difference, not funding privilege.”
Dr Thompson further identified a growing crisis of legitimacy within the civic sector, citing public concerns about transparency, elitism, and questionable leadership practices in some organisations.
“Who does civil society truly represent, the people or their funders?” he asked, and said, “Too often, we preach accountability but fail to practise it.”
To restore credibility, he advocated for stronger governance structures within CSOs, enhanced collaboration across the sector to reduce duplication, and a shift in focus from donor alignment to grassroots priorities.
Dr Thompson also urged the civic sector to be wary of accepting foreign funds tied to ideologies or agendas that may conflict with Ghana’s cultural values or development priorities.
Drawing on global examples, he cited China, Japan, and South Korea as countries that effectively used foreign aid to build strong national systems, emphasising that the issue was not aid itself, but how it was used.
He also warned that Ghana’s development crisis was as much about institutional weakness as it was about “values deficit,” pointing to acts of civic indiscipline and corruption that undermined progress.
“Fix our values and institutions, and Ghana could be heaven on earth,” he remarked.
Forum
The 2025 Forum, organised by STAR-Ghana Foundation, a leading NGO in partnership with Oxfam, WACSI, Transparency International Ghana, and others, builds on the outcomes of previous forums and aims to reposition civil society as a vital, independent, and credible force in Ghana’s development journey.
The two-day event is to deepen the collective understanding of the evolving development financing landscape and its implications for civic action in Ghana.
The forum, being the third in the series, attracted more than 500 actors from across Ghana’s civic space, including community-based organisations, national think tanks, academia, donor agencies, and government representatives.
It also seeks to strengthen cross-sectoral partnerships among and between civil society organisations (CSOs), the government, the private sector and international actors to support sustainable development.
The event brought together CSOs, government officials, youth advocates, traditional leaders, academics and development partners.
