STAR-Ghana Foundation seeks the services of a consultant to work with its team on the development of a learning paper on its work in local philanthropy. STAR-Ghana Foundation, since 2021 has implemented the Giving for Change project. This project supports the promotion of local philanthropy as a tool for inclusive community and national development.
STAR-Ghana Foundation intends to document lessons from its work on local philanthropy to inform and influence its own work around local philanthropy and the work of local philanthropy practitioners and facilitators in Ghana and globally. The purpose of the assignment is to develop a learning paper on SGF’s work in promoting local philanthropy, analyzing the strategy, results achieved, and lessons learned. Kindly find below, a link containing the Terms of Reference for your information.
document ToR for Learning Paper on Local Philanthropy (52 KB)
STAR Ghana_Thematic Evaluations_EOI template
Kindly send completed applications to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. The deadline is September 12, 2023.
You can also call +233 (030) 2774488
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Two Foundations and a City; an alliance of opportunities for development
If you are familiar with the phrase that preaches taking two to knit a bargain, you most likely have wondered if there is a third party and or beneficiary lurking. Questions like these, unless obvious, are often left unanswered. They say for every rule, there is an allowable variation. In this story, you are certainly satisfying your curiosity about who takes the bargain.
This is a story of Fondation Botnar and STAR-Ghana Foundation knitting a bargain for and with the city of Koforidua, so you would be absolutely right to say two “Foundations and a city” is an exception of the knitting rule because it is a three-way bargain. A bargain that requires “duty bearers to take young people seriously and get young people involved in governance.” This has become necessary because of the apparent exclusion of the youth in local governance according to the District League Table valuation.
During a two-day project development workshop in Koforidua, Project Manager for ‘Action for Youth Development (AfYD) Our City Project’ , Dr Ernestina Korleki-Tetteh, highlighted the steps preceding the workshop, and the different levels of engagements with stakeholders including young people, the courtesy calls on the Omanhene, the municipal chief executive among others, to deliberate and provide input for the design and implementation of the pro-youth project.
Community Based Organizations (CBOs) took turns to pitch their project proposals and undertook review exercises to tailor the drafts to more youth-centered initiatives. The engagement of these potential partners is under the ‘Action for Youth Development (AfYD) Our City Project’ implemented by STAR-Ghana Foundation with funding from Fondation BOTNAR.
Dr Tetteh said, “the project seeks is to see a municipality where young people are informed and have capacity to participate actively in governance and influence improved access to social and economic opportunities, and services delivery in the municipality.”
“We want duty bearers to take young people seriously and get young people involved in governance” she re-emphasized.
Head of Programmes at STAR-Ghana Foundation, Eunice Racheal Agbenyadzi, in her opening remarks indicated that the workshop presents an opportunity to show how interlinked their projects are. According to her, “the workshop will allow learning spaces around the different things being done and also learning the different connections collectively.” The Head of Programmes also emphasized that the municipality is a critical actor in the project, thus the workshop sought to create an opportunity to discuss ways to involve the municipality, especially young people in development. Ms. Agbenyadzi cautioned the Community Based Organizations (CBOs) against the tendency to think that the different partner projects will be standalone projects.
This Project Development Training offered participants tremendous insights into STAR-Ghana Foundation’s operations and how the AfYD call fits within the broader approach.
“Our City Project” seeks to contribute to a municipality where young people are informed and have the capacity to participate actively in governance and influence improved services across all sectors, through youth driven initiatives. The three-year project under AfYD is sited in Koforidua in the New Juabeng South Municipality of the Eastern Region.
For her part, the Head of Finance and Operations, Mary Sabbah, took the participating organizations through SGF’s way of budgeting. She stressed the importance of making “transactions easily understood by whoever is to review and easily traced.”
AfYD
In 2020, the district league table (DLT 2020) rated the New Juabeng municipality as one of the ten least performing districts on governance. The score indicates a mediocre performance in the implementation of its action plan for development, and as the action plan is a critical tool for development, its poor implementation impacts on the quality of services
The Action for Youth Development (AfYD) project with a focus on the youth as the primary target will strengthen the capacities of youth led/based organisations to mobilise, represent and engage constructively with duty bearers to sustainably address their needs and priorities in decisions and resources distribution.
Overall, this project will contribute to ensuring that young people are not relegated in the development processes and benefits thereof.
It seeks to promote partnership between duty bearers and citizens to ensure that development programming is more meaningful for young people and delivers health and wellbeing, access to social services, including education, decent work for young people.
The project is approached from an inclusion perspective, thereby contributing to reducing inequalities within access to social services for the different categories of young people.
Through this focus, the AfYD makes a direct contribution to the achievement of SDGs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 10 and 16.
Civil Society calls on Government to implement recommendations of the constitutional review commission
The Election Community of Practice and Learning (ECoPL) has organized a high-level stakeholders’ forum on the theme: The Constitutional Review Process, where are we? The event, which was held on Wednesday 30th November 2019 at the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences in Accra was supported by STAR Ghana Foundation.
Speaking on behalf of the Chairperson of the Governing Council (GC) of STAR Ghana Foundation, Professor Audrey Gadzakpo – member of the GC of the Foundation and Dean of the School of Information and Communication Studies, called on the government of Ghana to adopt an aggressive approach to implementing the recommendations of the constitutional review commission. Prof. Gadzakpo called for a holistic implementation of the recommendations.
“It is important that we adopt a holistic approach to the constitutional review process. We need therefore to put the implementation of the amendments firmly into our priority agenda. We need to re-energize citizens to deepen and consolidate democratic governance. The current situation which we think partly is from outstanding issues in the constitution that we are yet to address is breeding apathy, disengagement of citizens and importantly undermining accountability while encouraging impunity and promoting corruption”.
Deputy Attorney General, Godfred Dame, on his part indicated that the Government of Ghana was working around the clock to implement the recommendations. He said:
“The Attorney General has actually… taken steps to implement some of the recommendations of the constitution review commission. I have indicated that there have been submissions from the office of the Attorney General to Parliament for the amendment of article 243 (1).”
Elections Community of Practice and Learning (ECOPL) is a coalition of highly recognized civil society organizations, media houses, the National Commission for Civic Education, National Media Commission, National Peace Council, Political Parties and activists working together to positively influence elections planning, administration and system in Ghana. ECoPL has four priority areas namely: Constitutional Reforms, peace and security, election credibility and inclusivity as well as the use of ICT tools in elections management.
ECOPL on constitutional reforms stern from STAR-Ghana’s learning vision to strengthen and encourage learning, internally in STAR-Ghana and externally amongst civil society organizations and across diverse stakeholders in Ghana; and more particularly to mobilize critical stakeholders within the governance landscape to harness and share the lessons and emerging issues in respect of the implementation of recommendations for constitutional reforms in Ghana.
Stakeholders push for more investments to improve girl’s education
Speakers at a STAR-Ghana Foundation forum have called for increased investments in education to improve access to education for all.
The call is coming on the back of concerns that poverty and cost-related (hidden) challenges remain foremost on the list of barriers that confront girls’ continuous access to education.
Therefore, the unique needs of girls should be factored into education financing to enable girls to enroll, remain and complete their education.
The forum was held under the theme ‘Increasing Inclusive Access to Continuous Quality Education for Girls.”
In a scoping review of the challenges to girls’ education, Projects Manager at STAR-Ghana Foundation, Dr Ernestina Tetteh, cited as an example, the public outcry over prospectus for senior high school (SHS) education indicates that the Free SHS policy is not as inclusive as purposed to be.
“If accompanying FSHS is an estimated cost of GH₵3000 to GH₵4000 to buy prospectus then some people will still be left out. So, those costs that we see behind ‘free’ does not make it inclusive and ensure that girls also have access to, remain and complete education,” she said.
According to Dr Tetteh, there is low budgetary allocation for specific interventions that benefit girls’ education.
For instance, until the year 2020, complementary basic education, an important strategy in reducing the growing number of ‘out of school children’ especially girls, was solely donor funded. In the 2023 budget, an allocation of GH₵2.1 million has been made for complimentary education, while the Ministry of Education’s Strategic Plan 2018-2030 commits only 1 percent (%) of its Basic Education Budget to supporting Complementary Basic Education programme.
Budget execution
The Executive Director, Africa Education Watch, Kofi Asare, noted the financing architecture of Ghana’s education system does not prioritise basic education but secondary education.
This, he said gives girls at the secondary level more support to remain in school and complete than at the basic level.
“If you look at the envelope of the Ministry of Education, there is compensation (salaries), and discretionary budget that is unrestricted and could be touched. An analysis of the education budget shows that only about five per cent (5%) of the discretionary budget comes to basic education, it was previously 19 percent, and it has been coming down yearly.”
He added that the way public resources are deployed to finance education determines the extent to which the delivery of education will be possible and will include the needs of the vulnerable.
“Until we can pursue government to prioritise gender-responsive budgeting, we will talk and talk and will not see any improvement,” he said.
The Head of Programmes at STAR-Ghana Foundation, Eunice Racheal Agbenyadzi, beyond advocating for increased budget allocation, civil society should also be interested in actual disbursement, which has shown to be poor (more than 10% variance between allocated and disbursed).
“We need collective influencing on education budget to see increases in the areas of capital expenditure, and goods and services, but also to follow disbursements. We need stronger coalition as civil society to demand this,” she said.
The forum
The forum was organised by STAR-Ghana Foundation and partners under the Gender Rights and Empowerment Programme (G-REP) with funding from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) of the UK government.
The FCDO on G-REP seeks to contribute to increasing girls’ education, promoting women’s voices, political participation and addressing issues of violence and abuse against women and girls.
Fact sheet
Situation of girls’ education in Ghana
- Ghana has reached gender parity in enrolment, but regional disparities exist, particularly as junior and secondary high levels.
- Girls are still underrepresented in some subjects particularly Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)
- Water, sanitation and hygiene related challenges are still persistent
- Girls in school pregnancy causing drop-out among girls is still high
- High number of out of schoolgirls (289,456) ActionAid (2020); 244,731 girls aged 6-14 (GSS 2022)
- Lack of gender disaggregated education data poses a challenge for adequate planning towards the promotion of girls’ education.
