The Minister for Tourism, Arts and Culture, Catherine Ablema Afeku, who also doubles as the New Patriotic Party Member of Parliament for the Evalue Gwira Constituency in the Western Region has made a passionate appeal to the World Bank to fashion out a strategic plan to empower women through a sustainable indigenous culture to focus on eradication of poverty.
She said the plan would help elevate poverty in the rural communities through the empowerment of women who are the daily proponent enemy ambassadors of the indigenous culture.
“I think the World Bank will need to fashion out a strategic plan, focusing on how to elevate poverty in the rural communities through the empowerment of women who are the daily proponent enemy of ambassadors of the indigenous culture,” she suggested.
The minister made this call at a 2-day World Conference on Tourism and Culture held in Turkey, Istanbul on Monday, December 3, 2018.
The minister further suggested that organisers, from the next conference, engage some African representation as part of the panel to share African tourism and culture since they also have a lot of heritage tourist sites.
She also took the opportunity to attend Business World and Investment Opportunities Summit where she met a lot of business gurus to look for investors to invest in her sector to lift the face of the Ghanaian’s tourism.
Accompanied by Kennedy Kankam, MP for Nhyiaeso and other entourage, the Nhyiaeso MP said he was impressed with things talked about and the kind of people met at the various meetings, adding that it was a nice opportunity meeting investors “selling” Ghana to them to invest to create more job enabling environment for the people.
On the part of other speakers, a member of World Bank, Mr Ahmed Eiweida, urged governments across the globe to always release funds to support Tourism and Culture since it is one the areas to boost the economy.
He said, if governments invest in tourism and culture, it would bring more attention to countries and also generate revenue to the countries’ economy.
The programme which was organised by UNWTO/UNESCO with the theme “For the benefits of all”, participated by government officials, businessmen and women, University students among others from over 130 countries across the world.
The aim of the conference is to discuss sustainability and development goals to foster tourism and culture in various countries since is it one of the ways to generate income to support GDP.