UG to name Enterprise Hub after Kofi Annan

• Posted on March 7, 2019
• by Ellsamwise King
• Comment

The University of Ghana (UG) is to name its Enterprise Hub for Agricultural Innovation after the late Mr Kofi Annan, a former United Nations Secretary-General.

This was in recognition of Mr Annan’s contributions to ensuring world peace and food security.

Professor Eric Yirenkyi Danquah, the founding Director of the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI), University of Ghana, announced this at the opening of a day’s workshop on Cowpea Value Chain in Accra.

“Associated to WACCI’s efforts at strengthening the Commodity Value Chains of the important food security crops is our Enterprise Hub for Agricultural Innovation that we are establishing in August 2019,” Prof Danquah stated.

“Plans are far advanced for approval to name our Enterprise Hub after Mr Annan of blessed memory.”

He said the relationship between WACCI and the late Mr Annan goes as far back as July 30, 2008, when he paid a three-hour historic visit to WACCI ahead of his becoming Chancellor of the University of Ghana and encouraged them to make agriculture attractive for the youth.

Prof Danquah said the Enterprise Hub was going to be a game changing platform which would equip the youth with the knowledge and skills to birth ideas and grow their ideas into start-ups in partnership with the private sector.

He acknowledged the generous contribution from the Australian High Commission for the infrastructure, which would serve as the first stop base for training the incubatees.

He said this project would address the youth bulge in the country which if not properly managed, could become a human time bomb.

The one-day workshop, which was attended by participants from the West Africa sub-region was on the theme, “Sustainable Intensification of Cowpea Production and Value Chain Development.”

Prof Danquah reaffirmed the Centre’s commitment to define and strengthen the Cowpea Value Chain for investments.

He said the Centre fully supports the Government’s ‘Planting for Food and Jobs’ programme as well as the ;’Ghana Beyond Aid’ vision.

He said the only hope was that the Government would launch a major Competitive Grand Challenges Fund so that scientists would be able to access local funding to work on the challenges which if addressed, would lift millions out of hunger and poverty “so we meet the Sustainable Development Goal Two (SDG 2) in the set time.”

Mr Seth Paul Havor, Member of National Seed Trade Association of Ghana (NASTAG), said poor quality of foundation seeds leads to a lot of admixtures that require a lot of ‘rouguing’ thus reducing their final yields.

Mr Havor said among other opportunities was that inclusion of cowpea in government’s flagship programme – ‘Planting for Food and Jobs’ – offers a lot of opportunity for large scale production.

Dr Francis Kusi, Senior Research Scientist at Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) – Savanna Agricultural Research Institute (SARI) – encouraged marketers to patronise local varieties.