A 10-member task force has been set up to draw up modalities and facilitate the establishment of a National Early Warning Centre in Ghana.
The Centre’s role will be to warn the government of threats to human security, propose appropriate actions and monitor the implementation of responses to the warnings as part of a broader effort by member states of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
Vice President, Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia who inaugurated the task force says a National Early Warning Center will go a long way to help the country.
“I inaugurated the task force for the establishment of the National Early Warning Centre in Ghana at the Jubilee House, this morning.”
“The Centre’s role is to warn the Government of threats to human security, propose appropriate action, and coordinate and ensure monitoring of the implementation of response to the warning,” he explained.
“An efficient and effective early warning and response mechanism will not only guarantee the needed security for our development, but would help us prevent wanton loss of lives, health crises, humanitarian disasters, environmental calamities, among others.”
“I wish the Taskforce the very best as they undertake this important national assignment,” he said in a post on his Facebook page.
Members of the Task Force, drawn from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration; Defence; Interior; National Security; Health; Finance and Economic Planning; Justice and Attorney General; Gender, Children and Social Protection; and Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, and Chaired by Prof Joe Amoako-Tuffuor of the Office of the Vice President, were sworn in by His Lordship Anthony Oppong, a Justice of the Appeal Court, on Wednesday, May 13, 2020.
The project for the establishment of National Early Warning Centres received the backing of the ECOWAS Heads of State and Government during its 45th Ordinary Session held in Accra on 14th July, 2014.
The ECOWAS Commission established National Centres for the Coordination of the Response Mechanism (NCCRM) in five pilot countries (Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea Bissau, Mali and Liberia) between 2015-2019.
The next phase of the project focuses on the deployment of the Mechanism in Ghana, Benin, Senegal, Niger and Cape Verde.
The Ghana Centre, to be supported with logistics and fully equipped by the ECOWAS Commission, is expected to be launched in July, 2020.