The 2002 Ghana Budget, Wrapped Around HIPC and Property Owning Democracy
Source: ISODEC
The Centre for Budget Advocacy of the Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC) presents the second of its annual analysis of the national budget. The report takes a critical and questioning tone. IT aims to promote public debate on what constitutes the appropriate policy directions and the means by which scarce Ghanaian public resources can be best managed and put to use for the common good.
In ISODEC’s analysis of the 2001 budget, they have sought in this analysis, to answer questions
that are essential to their mission: These include:
Are the budget priorities likely to advance human rights, promote social justice and equity, and reduce poverty? To what extent is the budget consistent with the best intensions of the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy?
To what extent is the budget truly a product of domestic consensus as opposed to a response to external interests?
Is the budget an effective instrument for addressing the social contract between Ghanaians and their government?
This report is different from the 2001 one in one respect: it seeks an interpretation of the philosophical underpinnings of the government’s declared goal which is to build a “property owning democracyâ€, and how this goal informs the priorities and policy choices that the budget expresses. Being the first budget after the adoption of the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS) and the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) debt relief initiative, our analysis explores how these frameworks exert influences on policy and allocation priorities. Thus the title, “Wrapped up in Property Owning Democracy and HIPCâ€.
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