The Northern Caucus of Parliament has intensified its engagement with diplomatic missions and international development partners to secure strategic investment and catalyze comprehensive economic development across the five regions of Northern Ghana.
Speaking during a stakeholder briefing for members of the diplomatic community, Majority Leader and Caucus Chairman Mahama Ayariga underscored the critical need for targeted partnerships to counter widespread youth unemployment through the creation of sustainable, large-scale employment opportunities.
Ayariga framed the situation as a national crisis fueled by regional disparity. He noted that the expansive tracts of highly fertile but largely undeveloped and unirrigated land in the North leave young people with little choice but to migrate southward in search of menial labour.
“The youth of the North are forced to relocate to the south because of the limited regional capacity to provide equitable socio-economic opportunities,” Ayariga stated. He warned that, even more critically, many young individuals, seduced by the lure of quick riches, have gravitated toward the southern forest belt for illicit small-scale mining activities, often abandoning their education entirely.
In a move to tackle this urgent challenge, the Northern Caucus, which comprises Members of Parliament from both sides of the House, has resolved to prioritize harnessing the region’s full agricultural potential, positioning it as the nation’s definitive breadbasket.
”We took a strategic decision to consolidate our focus on transforming the North into the breadbasket of the country,” The leader and chairman disclosed. “This is a realizable vision that requires significant structural investment.”
He explained that the Caucus initiated the strategy by convening the regional ministers from all five administrative regions for comprehensive engagement. The ministers were then mandated to conduct thorough feasibility studies, identifying prime locations for mobilizing domestic and foreign investment into large-scale commercial agriculture projects.
Furthermore, to bolster the institutional capacity necessary to anchor this initiative, the Caucus raised funds and facilitated a 10-day capacity-building tour of South Africa’s Limpopo province for all five regional ministers, who were joined by the Bono Regional Minister due to similar geographical features.
The Caucus’s bipartisan mandate aims to transcend partisan divisions to collectively address critical regional disparities, including youth joblessness, food security risks, and chronic infrastructural deficits, positioning the North as a resilient engine of Ghana’s economic growth.
Story By: Eugenia Ewoenam Osei
