In the quest for sustainable development initiatives, communities and vulnerable groups in society constantly need a professional voice to speak out for them at all levels of living arrangement-government, policy and resource allocation in a growing complex and confusing world.

Our advocacy work is about educating and mobilizing people and communities to influence their course of action from within- personal troubles and public issues. We think globally and campaign locally and nationally. To this end, our advocacy campaigns are devoted to concentrated attention on research, roundtable discussion, press releases, production of appropriate education materials in the form of documentaries, stickers, posters, and supporting the formation and resourcing of self-help initiatives for sustainable development. This programme is led by partners/a group of colleagues with wide self-consistent professional experience in sustainable development initiatives, a high level of mutual understanding and respect among stakeholders built up over many years.

The advocacy team recognizes our collective and special qualities and achievement in the interlinked programme areas of poverty reduction, education, access to opportunities and investing in community and social networks. This make our Research and Advocacy programme fully alert in whatever we do to the wide-ranging impact which our interventions seeks in the quest for sustainable development in the communities and the lives of the people in modern Ghana. We seek to frequently disseminate our Policy and Practice Based research outputs to Government agencies, Civil Society, the communities and other stake holders.

We consider for example, breaking the silence around life style diseases and the vulnerability of women and children to be the top priorities for Ghana at this crucial period of the country’s development effort. This is more so because the discourses surrounding HIV/AIDS epidemic for example and social exclusion are complex and dynamic and the research and advocacy needs are also continuously changing. This requires that every available medium and particularly the media (Print and Electronic) be used to bring the issues to the attention of all the actors/players in the crusade against social exclusion.

Advocacy platforms including the media, if used effectively and actively can help identify the crucial influencers and decision makers, select appropriate channels to reach those individuals and plan creative and powerful approaches to get the messages across. The purpose of our advocacy work is to build momentum for sustained awareness and correct, incorrect and/or superficial knowledge about the issues since self-efficacy is central to sustainable self-help development initiatives.

2. Good Governance through Citizens, & Civil Society-Government interface project
Good governance and sustainable development are positively correlated. Persistent underdevelopment in communities and countries as a whole are mainly due to poor governance environment. This is why it is commonly reported that “underlying the litany of Africa’s development problems is a crisis of governance”. Good governance includes the exercise of political, economic and administrative authority to manage the affairs development processes in a manner that is equitable, just, representative and participatory. It is a normative concept.

Center for Development Initiatives places high premium on good governance as a prerequisite to sustainable growth and development for two reasons: First good governance is related to necessity to create a transparent systems for financial administrative and accountability. In this regard, it is about the quality of public goods and services supplied at the local and national levels that makes good governance an important prerequisite to growth and development. Second, the concept denotes accountability, representation and participation of the citizens in public policy making processes. In our quest to achieving these, we play facilitatory and coordinating roles in ensuring a citizens and local government interface. Our objective is to promote participation, transparency, accountability, tolerance, equity, equality, gender balance and strengthening of indigenous mechanisms in the municipal assemblies development work. We consider these are the leveling panoplies which assure and guarantee sustainable development initiatives.

We also strive to strengthen civil society and hotspot issues about community efforts to hold duty bearers accountable in development planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation work through capacity building, sensitization, social and community mobilization activities.

We have a strong focus on social policy influencing and advocacy particularly those dealing with women, children, persons with disability (PWD) and persons living with HIV and AIDS (PLHIV) among other vulnerable groups participation in the works of local governance.

We are currently  working towards the establishment of regular platforms in collaboration with stakeholders in furtherance of this initiative and will welcome individuals and organizations exploring partnership in this regard.