Ghana will host the 15th Consultative Group (CG) Meeting with her development partners in Accra. The meeting which is scheduled for Monday June 30, 2008 will take place at the La Palm Royal Beach Hotel, Accra According to a press release from the World Bank Ghana Country Office, about 350 participants including Government officials, development experts, development partners, civil society organizations and the media are expected to take part in the one-day event. The statement explained that as is typical of the CG Meeting, there will be a retrospective presentation of the results, achievements and challenges of Ghana’s development and poverty reduction program, as well as the priority areas the government proposes to focus on in the coming years, and the resources that would be needed to invest in these areas. The overriding theme for this year’s CG Meeting is: ‘Ghana’s Aid Policy – A Joint Approach to Accelerated Development.’ Another key highlight of this year’s Meeting is a discussion of the Long-Term National Development Plan being prepared by the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), the Annual Progress Report on GPRS II, and a paper on Investing in Ghana’s Growth and Poverty Reduction, the statement said. According to the statement, the Development Partners will outline the level of resources they have provided Ghana over the last few years and also indicate what they intend to provide to Ghana over the next 3 years, by the end of the Meeting. It indicated that over the past several years, donors have jointly injected more than a billion dollars into the Ghanaian economy each year, and this is seen by development experts as contributing to the overall macro-economic stability Ghana is enjoying. It also said that Ghana is currently on course to become one of a few African countries to achieve the first MDG of halving poverty by 2015. The statement identified that the recent global economic challenges which have been caused by rising oil and food prices and climate change, are expected to hinder the progress made so far, and therefore, ample time will be spent deliberating on how Government, with assistance from her development partners, could minimize the negative impact of these external factors. And according to its custom, a joint Summary of Proceedings will be issued by the Co-Chairpersons of the CG at the end of the Meetings, the statement added. By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi